The Shadows

Tyler Morris’ latest release, “Living In The Shadows”, is the powerhouse guitarist’s second Vizztone release in the Blues/Rock genre and his fourth release in total. “Living in the Shadows” was produced by Mike Zito (Royal Southern Brotherhood, Mike Zito Band), who says, “Tyler Morris is a very serious contender in the new world domination of Blues Rock Guitar players. He is fired up and fierce for a young man. His depth of musical knowledge knows no bounds and he is just coming into his own voice. Tyler will help bring back the glory of Electric Guitar to the masses.” Recording guests on this album include Blues legends Ronnie Earl, Joe Louis Walker and Mike Zito, as well as acclaimed vocalist Amanda Fish, who featured Tyler on her Blues Music Award winning album last year.

Swedish heavy/power metallers MANIMAL had a great start in 2009, when they released their debut album “The Darkest Room”. Right away it hit the album charts in their home country Sweden on #36 and received worldwide critical acclaim. The intelligent mixture of powerful melodic metal and a few progressive elements made MANIMAL one of the genre’s most promising new acts. Since a few years already, the Gothenburg-based band has now worked on the follow-up. And it definitely was worth the wait!

The Shadows have gotten a magnificent sendoff with this concert DVD from their final tour, undertaken in 2004 and featuring Hank Marvin, Bruce Welch, and Brian Bennett, supported by Mark Griffiths on bass and Cliff Hall on keyboards…

Michael Spyres is a singer who challenges and reshapes perceptions – as his albums BariTenor and Contra-Tenor have shown. Now, preparing for his debut at the Bayreuth Festival in Summer 2024, he searches In the Shadows to reveal more about Wagner and the origins of his music dramas. “Wagner evokes a varying spectrum of emotions – awe, ecstasy, even trepidation,” explains Spyres. “This album endeavours to illuminate the composers who languish in the shadows, who formed the foundation of Wagner’s compositions and sculpted the framework of vocal writing for the Wagnerian tenor.” In the Shadows culminates with three arias by Wagner – from Lohengrin and the lesser-known Die Feen and Rienzi. Preceding them are early-19th-century arias by composers of the French, German and Italian schools: Méhul, Beethoven, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Weber, Auber, Spontini, Bellini and Marschner. Spyres’s distinguished companions in his exploration are the players of Les Talens Lyriques and their conductor Christophe Rousset.

This double-disc, 50-track collection of the Shadows can only be recommended to avid collectors. After breaking off with singer Cliff Richard (they were his backing band), the Shadows chalked up numerous instrumental hits in the early '60s, including "Apache," "Man of Mystery," and "Kon-Tiki." They became the British equivalent of the Ventures. While the first disc is more than satisfying, the second disc takes a quick nosedive and consists mainly of filler along the lines of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina," "Theme from The Deer Hunter," "Nights in White Satin," and "Rodrigo's Guitar Concerto de Aranjuez." With the exception of Shadows fanatics, 50 Golden Greats would have been a much better value cut in half.

Released in time for Christmas 1984, Guardian Angel was surely little more than a contractual obligation, with 11 songs that exist for no better reason than to draw you one track closer to the end of side two…

Living in the Shadows is an apt title for this four-disc box set from Earth Recordings. Its subject, guitarist Bert Jansch, is a certified legend, world-renowned for his groundbreaking early solo records, his membership in Pentangle, and his innovative playing style that stretched the boundaries of various Celtic and European folk musics to embrace improvisational jazz, rock, and Middle Eastern modalism and influenced generations of players.

Robert Vaughn, and his band The Shadows (not British rock group The Shadows), debuted in 1987 with a classic rock sound. He recorded another album with The Shadows on Alternative Records (1991's Songs from the Riverhouse), then headed up the thematic project, Southside Blades of Eden releasing the album Spirit, Love & Fire in 1993. Vaughn then formed the band the Dead River Angels, and released an album on Miramar Records (1994's Robert Vaughn and the Dead River Angels). A track from Vaughn's later band landed on the soundtrack album for the Steven Seagal movie, On Deadly Ground.