Jet Harris - R.I.P...

Sorry to see another 'hero' shuffle off.

For many young lads in the fifties and sixties, 'The Shadows' were the first real rock and roll group, but you didn't really call it 'rock and roll', because:-

a) Your mum and dad didn't like it.

b) Rock and roll was by some American group, and didn't sound anything like The Shadows.

Somewhere in the roof, I still have seven or eight EPs by The Shadows, and wouldn't mind getting them out (or on Ebay pehaps), because some of the music was good back then, especially one particular track. As usual, a story goes with it...

A few years ago, on one Sunday morning, I was making something in the garage and had the wireless on, listening to Invicta Radio. I also had a monstrous hangover, the sort which makes you wince at the sound of a small nail dropping to the floor, and feel faint when you have to bend down to pick it up!

Over the wireless, the presenter had a slot where he would play a bit of music - say a drum solo, and ask people to phone in with the answer. Now I never normally take any notice of these items, because some phone-ins are so dire, that I have to turn the sound down while Bert from Margate gibbers about, says 'you know' a dozen times, and generally makes the air painful, especially the air around a throbbing head and ears...

DJ Bob from Invicta was cracking on through his programme, and playing the same drum solo over and over again, and nobody was getting it at all! Directly I'd heard it, I recognised it as Tony Meehan's solo from 'See you in my drums' from The Shadows' first album. Well I would know it, as the prefects in the studies below our dormitory at school played it incessantly for about ten weeks...

And so I'd bought the EP, and listened to it for several more years, and life eventually went on without too many plays, until now!

After about twenty five 'Berts from Margate' had got it wrong, I had to do something about it, so I rushed in the house, grabbed ED's tape recorder, asked her to listen out on the radio, and be ready to hear her daddy, and then I called the DJ...

I was put on air immediately, and luckily, didn't stammer, say 'you know', or worse still get it wrong (I'd written it down on the back of a sanding disk, remember I had a hangover, and was shaking more than somewhat), and luckily, got it right. We chatted on air for a minute or so, and he promised he'd send me a prize, which was an album by The Three Tenors, which I gave to my dad.

So that was the one and only time Scrobs ever became famous, and it was all down to The Shadows, with bass guitarist, Jet Harris playing all of three notes over and over again, from start to finish...

'Bye Jet, your music was pretty good back then, and you were a Diamond!