| Master-No: | 21 605 |
| Label: | Columbia |
| Country: | GER |
| Release Date: | 1960-9-6 |
| Artist: | Shadows |
| A-Side: | Apache |
| B-Side: | Quatermaster's Stores |
| Beschreibung: | Composer A: Jerry Lordan
Length: 02:52 Matrix No: 7XCA 25198 Composer B: Trad. - Arr. Bill Shepherd Length: 02:20 Matrix No: 7XCA 25199 Location: Abbey Road Studios, London Date: 17.06.1960 Musicians: Hank Marvin (lg) Bruce Welch (rg) Jet Harris (bg) Tony Meehan (drms) Cliff Richard (chinese drums) on A-Side General Information: 4th single, charted at no.1. Flip side "Quatermasster's Stores". Bert Weedon recorded it first but released it later. Also released as 33rd and 38th single, b/w "F.B.I" and "Wonderful Land". Stereo version on the "Greatest Hits" stereo release. CD version first on "20 Golden Greats" compilation. aus: A Pocket Guide to Shadow Music - Malcolm Campbell The A-side is one of the all-time instrumental classics; a measure of its greatness is that it has enjoyed an extraordinarily rich and varied afterlife, quite outside the scope of this Pocket Guide. (The American imitation [see below] actually attracted a version with lyrics which Sonny James took to No.87 in the US charts in 1961: “Lonely Silver Dove/ Sweet Apache maid” pines for her deceased lover, evidently a reminiscence of the “Indian maid”, “Little White Dove”, of Johnny Preston’s 1959/60 hit ‘Running Bear’). Not to be outdone, the French came up with a take of their own, entitled ‘L’amour fait la loi’ [‘Love Makes The Rules’], for details of which the interested reader is referred to SCOFA 30 [1992] p.9). Essential reading on the track: Mo Foster, Seventeen Watts?, Sanctuary Publishing 1997, pp.139ff.; see also for detailed discussion of APACHE and other compositions the Jerry Lordan obituary by Rob Bradford in Pipeline 29 (1995/96) pp.6–13. Whilst The Shadows were on a package tour with singer-songwriter Jerry Lordan they heard his rendition of APACHE (played to Hank and Bruce on a ukulele during a coach journey to a gig; Jet had been treated to it earlier, see below) and were utterly amazed. In June 1960 The Shadows taped what was to become the definitive version. Bert Weedon, whose version had come out a short while previously (the sequence of first chart entries is: Bert Weedon LP King Size Guitar feat. APACHE: 15 July; Shadows Single: 22 July; BW Single: 29 July) began plugging the number at live appearances and on radio — which as it happened helped rather than hindered The Shadows. Their version rapidly hit No.1, and went on to sell in excess of one million copies. Cliff Richard is even featured on the record, contributing a Chinese drum part to the intro and outro. According to Jerry Lordan, whose inspiration here, both for the imposing title and for the artistic styling, was the 1954 Burt Lancaster film ‘Apache’, “I wanted something noble and dramatic, reflecting the courage and savagery of the Indian — two opposite qualities”. The Shadows’ awesomely atmospheric rendition captures these attributes and more; Bert Weedon’s version, stilted, mannered, old-school, disappointed the tune’s creator: “It wasn’t anything like I’d envisaged”. Indeed, in an interview given to RB in 1990, Jerry stated: “Bert Weedon is a brilliant guitarist – but his version of ‘Apache’ was dreadful. It was so awful that I actually broke down and cried when I first heard it.” APACHE went on to become a massive hit in every world market that mattered, including the USA, though there Danish guitarist Jorgen Ingmann stepped in to scoop up a No.2 with a very different styling, inoffensive and unexceptional — an evocation of Hawaiian music then very much in vogue Stateside: for more on how this came about see Piet Muys in New Gandy Dancer 76 [2005] p.11. (As Dave Burke has remarked, “Ingmann was a very fine guitarist with jazz leanings ..., although when it came to rock ’n’ roll he had the tendency to sound decidedly wooden”.) The Ventures too threw their weight behind the number, first committing it to record on the 1963 LP Play Telstar ~ The Lonely Bull. In multiple subsequent renditions they appear to have been wedded to the decorative whistling arrows and overall ambience of the Ingmann model. The Shadows’ chance was gone: they would never break into this most lucrative and prestigious of markets. Their niche there was occupied by the group commonly regarded as their American counterparts (though they in fact differed from The Shadows in a number of important respects): The Ventures, who had half a dozen Top 40 Singles in their home territory between 1960 and 1969 (as well as seventeen Top 40 Albums over the same period), the first of which, ‘Walk Don’t Run’, was, like Ingmann’s APACHE, a No.2. NOTE As a rider to the above, RB reports that in a telephone conversation shortly before Jerry Lordan’s death, the latter was adamant, and he wanted it “noted for posterity” (his words) that “Jet Harris was the first to hear APACHE”. “Yes, it was played to Hank and Bruce on the famous coach journey to Bristol’s Colston Hall”. But....Jerry was insistent that history should be “put straight”: he played it first to Jet (probably the night before) and Jet replied straight away “You’ve got to play that to Hank and Bruce”. The B-side is a superb driving instrumental version of ‘In The Quartermaster’s Stores’, performed according to the group in the style of Johnny & The Hurricanes (the end product though was not at all rough and ready or rowdy). It was an old army ditty: National Service was just coming to an end and the melody would certainly have been familiar to hundreds of thousands of squaddies and ex-servicemen. It had evolved into a popular song beloved of Brownies, Cubs etc., with infinitely variable lyrics, commonly unsophisticated or downright vulgar (those in the tome 101 Pub Favourites For Buskers represent the merest tip of the iceberg). The Shadows’ habit of using humorous titles began here. They named the flipside QUATERMASSTER’S STORES (it has since proved to be the most misspelled Shadows’ track by a fair margin, and not only on overseas record issues) after the popular trio of ‘Quatermass’ sci-fi series screened by BBC TV between 1953 and 1959. Strange to relate, producer Norrie Paramor was all for having ‘Cookhouse Door’ (as he called it) as the top-side. His teenage daughters showed better taste. Luckily, influential ‘Saturday Club’ producer Jim Grant flipped the disc over and the rest, as they say, is history. Incidentally, composer and arranger Bill Shepherd always thanked Jerry Lordan whenever he saw him because the royalties are identical for both A- and B-sides. Bruce Welch has indicated that this proved a timely lesson for the group — one they put to good use in the future when they added their own numbers to the flipside of as many releases as possible. |
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