The+shadows

The Shadows were an English instrumental rock group. They were Cliff Richard's backing band from 1958 to 1968 and on numerous reunion tours. The Shadows have had 69 UK chart singles from the 1950s to the 2000s, 35 credited to the Shadows and 34 to Cliff Richard and the Shadows. The group, who were in the forefront of the UK beat-group boom, were the first backing band to emerge as stars. As pioneers of the four-member instrumental format, the band consisted of lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass guitar and drums. Their range covers pop, rock, surf rock and ballads with a jazz influence.

In the years after Elvis Presley but before the Beatles, Cliff Richard was the biggest thing in British rock & roll – and in the years after the Beatles, he was never far from the top of the U.K. charts. Arriving in 1958, just a couple of years after skiffle swept Britain, Richard was the first English singer to approximate the hip-shaking rebellion of American rock & roll with his 1958 debut single "Move It." A smash hit right out of the gate, "Move It" kicked off an astonishing five decades' worth of hits (as of 2014, his last time in the U.K. Top 10 was in 2008, when "Thank You for a Lifetime" went to number three). The earliest recordings, most made with his backing band the Shadows, were his hardest-rocking and undoubtedly his most influential, making an impression on nearly the entire first generation of British rock & rollers. Like Presley, who was certainly Richard's key influence, Cliff's popularity wound up pushing him ever so gradually to the status of an all-around entertainer. He moved into movies quickly – the first came just a year after "Move It" – and the Shadows tamed their rockabilly, but the real shift into the mainstream came after the Beatles opened the flood gates for homegrown British rock & roll, banishing Richard to the status of an older generation. Cliff continued to have hits in the '60s, even after he and the Shadows disbanded in 1968, but he split his time between pop and Christian music; in the early '70s, he focused on hosting a variety show on the BBC. Toward the end of the '70s, he made a big pop comeback with 1976's "Devil Woman," which became his first Top 10 hit in the U.S., and over the next five years, he racked up several intercontinental soft rock hits, including 1979's "We Don't Talk Anymore," 1980's "Dreamin'," and the Olivia Newton-John duet "Suddenly," taken from the 1980 soundtrack to Xanadu.

The Shadows are easily the most popular and influential British instrumental group of all time. Their career started in the late 50's as Cliff Richard's backing band and they consistently hit the singles charts well into the 80's. Lead guitarist Hank Marvin is cited by many modern pickers as a major influence. Throughout the latter part of their career, they released many instrumental covers and interpretations of classic themes.

This is a Greatest Hits compilation by British group The Shadows. They had been known as Cliff Richard's backing group before they chose to depart and have a career under their own name. This came out in 1995 on Hungarian label Ring Records.

Marvin, Welch & Farrar (aka MWF) were a 1970s British and Australian popular music group formed by Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch, both members of The Shadows – as a change of direction manoeuvre during 1970 to 1973 – and John Farrar (ex-The Strangers). The distinction was that while The Shadows were famous for their instrumental work, Marvin Welch & Farrar were a trio, vocal harmony group. They have been favourably compared to USA folk close harmony group Crosby Stills Nash and Young (aka CSNY) and The Hollies. Their second album, Second Opinion (1971), produced by Peter Vince, in a private poll during the 1970s by EMI record's Abbey Road's sound engineers, was voted as one of the best ever sounding albums recorded at these studios. This album is a compilation of MWF's first and second album.

Live at the Paris Olympia Review by Bruce Eder
On the one hand, the Shadows are among the last throwbacks to a brand of utterly professional, painstakingly precise package rock & roll that existed in England before the Beatles and their contemporaries came along and substituted passion for a degree of virtuosity. On the other, the Shadows were among the biggest boosters of the electric guitar in a culture that still wasn't certain of its feelings for American-style jazz, much less rock & roll. This expanded version of the live album they cut at the Paris Olympia showcases the group's virtues and flaws about as well as anything they ever did, and may be the best way – other than picking up a handful of hits like "Apache" – for the uninitiated to discover the Shadows.