First gig

[Mike Rogers]

I've been informed, by someone who was there with me, that today is the 50th anniversary of the first ever gig I attended.
It was The Shadows with Cliff Richard and I remember it very well. The Shadows were excellent.
For some reason I have felt quite depressed since learning of this, maybe because it makes me feel very old.

[Richard H]

ahhh, Cliff & the Shadows, GREAT musicians, shame about the singer.........!

[russ]

First gig i ever went to (talk about feeling old) was...
Earnest Evans (Chubby Checker) - doing The Twist
in a big revival style tent at Monroe County Fair, Rochester, NY
in like 1960 or 61.

[Harvey2]

ahhh, Cliff & the Shadows, GREAT musicians, shame about the singer.........!

How bloody dare you slag off Sir Cliff!

I am not the only Cliffard fan who visits here and every time I've seen the guy in concert, I'm just more amazed by his talent. The guy put on a fantastic show at the Albert Hall for his 70th birthday!! And if you're even a zillionth as good when you reach three score and ten, then I'll eat my pants.

My first gig - Gene Vincent and The Shouts!

[Rita]

I am not the only Cliffard fan who visits here

Yes, you are not... Cliff was my first love when he sang lucky lipps and I remember well his (and my) dissapointment when he was only second on the european song contest with his song "Congratulations" in 1968. I admit I had almost forgotten about him but then he showed up again on Harvey's tlp and I think he still sounds great! Unfortunately I've never seen him live.

My first gig ever was Leonhard Cohen in Zürich around 1977, unforgettable!

Rita

[Richard H]

Oh dear, I seem to have hit a nerve haven't I! (I am giggling away whilst writing this, Harvey2 you've made my day reading your comment!) And of course, my comment was tongue in cheek. Anybody who can have a career as long & successful as His Right Royal Cliffness has really does deserve the utmost respect.........unfortunately I remember the cringeworthy Wimbledon sing-along & just can't bring myself to give it to him!

Joking apart, I read that Cliff year on year has the celebrity calendar that sells the most copies here in UK, which is amazing given the amount of them there are to choose from.

So, Harvey2, & all other Cliff fans out there, accept my humble apologies, I meant no offence. For I am in no position to take the moral high ground when it comes to first gigs.............imagine the scene if you will, it's 1981, & a guitar mad 12 year old boy pesters his dad until he gives in & takes his son to see.............Whitesnake. (Oh the shame of it...)

[KenB]

The Cliff Richards song that sticks in my mind is ‘The Young Ones’. CR and the Shadows cracked the charts over here with that one and Living Doll. Hank Marvin was/is one of the lesser known early guitar heroes.

My first pay-to-get-in concert was either Johnny and the Hurricanes or Duane Eddy. Can’t remember which came first -- they were fairly close in order back in 1959, or so.

[Richard H]

That's interesting KenB that you remember those songs being hits in your part of the world, & you're in good company. Both you & Neil Young must've been listening to the same radio stations back then in Toronto, (Neil was not far away from you in Omemee), as he's regularly cited Hank Marvin as a major influence on his early guitar playing, & if you listen to his earliest recordings with the Squires it's all there, as they were really trying to be the Shadows. The majority of people (including me for many years) thought that the Hank referred to in Neil's song "From Hank To Hendrix" was Hank Williams, (use Hank on it's own & to be fair the vast majority of people would say "Williams" as a response) but apparently it was Hank Marvin he was referring to.

[KenB]

I don't want to drift off topic but I have to credit the internet for keeping so much of the older material alive and available. So even if you are prone to forgetting things, YouTube helps you remember all over again. Back in the day I had no clue that Hank Marvin played lead guitar for the Shadows. Now years later the missing pieces of my old memories can be reassembled ;) Thanks YouTube and Wikipedia.

Neil Young is an interesting character. I read that one of his more recent ideas is to improve the quality of Cds. Here’s something else gleaned from the same newspaper article. Steve Jobs had a passion for ‘vinyl’. That’s right, the wizard behind Apple computer, the digital medium of the 21st century, had a thing for analog recordings. Go figure.

[Mike Rogers]

About 20 years ago I realised the danger of dissing Cliff Richard. I spotted a calendar on a colleague's wall and stated the bleedin' obvious "I see you're a Stiff fan then."
The woman lept to her feat and her face turned purple as she spewed out "AND WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM WITH THAT?" I muttered something and beat a hasty retreat, expecting to be struck by lightning.
A few weeks' later I started getting material through the post from the Cliff Richard Organisation. The mailshots have continued unabated to this day and I'm too scared to try and stop them as I reckon it would be like killing an albatross. The most recent was typical - promoting Cliff's 'Solacious' tour and offering coach trips and hotel rooms at discounted prices to watch the man in action. The thought of Cliff singing soul is even more bizarre than that of the Sex Pistols recording an albums of hymns.
But I'll confine my comments to (mainly) positives.
1) Cliff is actually a decent guitarist and much underrated in this regard.
2) He allowed (probably had no choice) The Shadows to prosper. They in turn did a superb job of backing him vocally and instrumentally and writing a lot of his material.
3) In 1960 he and the Shadows released one of the defining albums of early British rock Me & My Shadows. (Actually it annoys me no end when people say that there was no life before the Beatles. Believe me there was plenty.)
4) In the 50s and for much of the 60s Cliff released some good British pop. And there was a second coming in what I call the Miss You Nights & Devil Woman era.
I'll draw an veil over most of the rest.
5) Cliff enjoys a great deal of fanatical support - and I'm talking real fans, not pretenders like Russ! Cliff's was the best selling celeb calendar of 2011.
6) He is leaner and clearly much fitter than I am - the sod.

But for me his longevity means little.Marty Wilde always was and still is a much better singer from that era. Tom Jones and Robert Plant have got better with age (like Tony Bennett).
Hank Marvin, my number one inspiration, now lives in Australia and plays gypsy jazz. see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG4C6yiOR4M