#31jan

George and Paul in the Cavern, c. 31st January 1963. The Beatles were rehearsing for their upcoming tour supporting Helen Shapiro. 

On a lighter note here is an ad for World War lll. Coming soon.

Wonderful Land by The Shadows. One of their record 5 UK instrumental Number 1's. Written by Jerry Lordan and originally released by The Shadows in 1962, staying at No. 1 for 8 weeks. After Apache, which was also written by Lordan, this was probably The Shadows best known hit (although I think they should also have tried to get a catchy one word title for this).

This performance was broadcast 31 January 1970 and sees The Shadows using their 'other guitars'. Hank Marvin is most closely associated with his red and white Fender Stratocaster but here he and bassist John Rostill are seen with their black and white Baldwin-Burns Guitars. If you watch John, on the left, at the start of the clip it looks as if he wasn't expecting the backing track to start when it did. As far as I can tell Hank is playing live but its hard to tell at times as he can just play note perfect every time.

Rhythm guitarist Bruce Welch is missing as he had temporarily left the group. Other long time member Brian Bennett is on drums.

Completing the line-up is Alan Hawkshaw seated at the piano. Many won't realise he was in The Shadows for a while but may be familiar with his name and the music he composed for UK television shows such as the music from Countdown, the theme to Dave Allen's comedy shows and the library music that was used as the themes to both Grange Hill and Give Us A Clue.

What an idiot. He probably means well but that would just rip the bedsheets unless he really knew what he was doing.