'Talk of the Town', And, Later in the Year, in Cabaret Wi
1966 The group appeared with Cliff for a six-week spell at London’s ‘Talk Of The Town’, and, later in the year, in cabaret without Cliff at Bournemouth and South Shields. But they were with him for three further major projects, the films ‘Finders Keepers’ and (as puppets) ‘Thunderbirds Are Go’; and also (in the flesh) the pantomime ‘Cinderella’ which opened at the London Palladium on 10 December 1966. For all three, the first two especially, they penned a number of finely crafted vocal and instrumental pieces, which resulted in eponymous releases, an LP (which made No.6), an EP (No.6 again), and another LP put out in January 1967 (a mere No.30 for Cinderella , a very uneven set, the first Cliff Album not to make the Top 20). The high points for Cliff and The Shadows in the Singles department were the outstanding ‘Time Drags By’ (No.10) and ‘In The Country’ (yet another No.6), both group compositions. The Shadows fared less well with their own Singles, the first and third of which were vocals: [138] I MET A GIRL (No.22), [154] A PLACE IN THE SUN (No.24), [156] THE DREAMS I DREAM (No.42). [138] I MET A GIRL was eminently hummable, if not in the league of “a Rubber Soul outtake”, to which one reviewer likened it; nobody appears to have stopped to reflect that the elegant [154] A PLACE IN THE SUN, released in July, might have been wholly out of line with current market trends, as a glance at the Top 20 for the beginning of August, say, will reveal; as it happened though, Hank Marvin’s [156] THE DREAMS I DREAM, the most commercial-sounding by far and a composition that compares favourably with his later favourite [203] THE DAY I MET MARIE, was the one that gave them their lowest chart placing to date; it would be recorded by Cliff Richard without The Shadows on the 1968 Album Established 1958 .
[Show full text]