While this is a self-published labour of love, it doesn’t blindly praise everything The Shadows ever recorded, with or without Cliff Richard. Wise to individual weaknesses within the flux of personnel over the decades, the authors, if proud, even boastful, of the group’s market achievements, pull no punches. When laying into 1965’s “rough, very rough” Nothing Folks (left unreleased until appearing on a CD retrospective) or quoting a disobliging review of a 1981 revival of Telstar (‘the horrendous disco drumbeat sticks out like a sore thumb’), they prove themselves clear-headed enough to write a fair book.
Surely the litmus test for any book, infectious enthusiasm for, say, the string-freighted Atlantis (“something ethereally wistful, yearning about this record”) will make you want to give certain tracks an immediate spin. Crucially, however, this thorough chronicle stands up as a ‘good read’ as much as a painstakingly detailed and indexed track-bytrack breakdown, a lot of which is derived from conversations with the band themselves. It includes all the trimmings: composing credits, recording dates, catalogue numbers, you name it, keeping the trivia freak as happy as a sandboy.
