Jet, who came up with the name The Shadows in 1959, will turn 71 this year and he's still out there gigging all over the UK on a regular basis. He's actually been playing professionally for a remarkable 54 years. He started out at the very dawn of the Skiffle/Rock and Roll era. Even before that -- his first love was Jazz. Jet used to play stand up double bass. He took lessons from bass supremo Sammy Stokes (Jack Parnell, Kenny Graham, Ted Heath Band etc). By 1958 he was already an accomplished player and had stints with The Vipers Skiffle Group and Tony Crombie and his Rockets. Tony Crombie suggested that Jet should switch to electric bass. Jet was amongst the first to own an electric bass (Framus Star bass) in the UK.
In October 1958 Jet was playing bass for the Most Brothers on Cliff's first UK tour. When he was asked to play bass for Cliff as well he was initially reluctant until he noticed that "Move It" was climbing the charts. So Jet changed his mind. Shortly after the tour, the classic Hank, Bruce, Jet and Tony line - up was
in place. The rest, as they say, is history. Jet became the proud first UK owner of a Fender Precision bass.
With Jet's inventive, dynamic and aggressive bass lines powering them along (allied to the other great talents in the group), The Shadows went from strength to strength. Jet has played on a whole string of classic recordings -- chart placings in brackets: "Living Doll" (1), "Travelling Light" (1), "A Voice In The
Wilderness" (2), "Fall In Love With You" (2), "Please Don't Tease" (1), "I Love You" (1), "Gee Whiz It's You" (4), "A Girl Like You" (3), "The Young Ones" (1), "We Say Yeah", "Do You Wanna Dance" (2) and many more with Cliff.
With the Shadows the list is equally impressive: "Apache" (1), "Man Of Mystery" (5), "FBI" (6), "The Frightened City" (4), "Kon - Tiki" (1), "The Savage" (9) and "Wonderful Land" (1) - No fewer than three No.1 hits amongst that little lot! Following his departure from the Shads, Jet scored heavily with "Besame
Mucho" (22), "Main Title Theme" (12), "Diamonds" (1), "Scarlett O'Hara" (2) and "Applejack" (4). The last three featured ex-Shadow Tony Meehan. On some f these tracks Jet pioneered the use of the Fender VI six - string bass guitar. The doomy, powerful, juddering sound was dubbed "The 6-string
Thunder Thrill".
During the past 20 years or so, Jet has appeared regularly with groups such as Vintage, Twist 'n' Shout, Tangent and, especially, the fabulous Rapiers. He's also continued to record and in 2007 he released "The Journey" -- a CD of brand new tracks designed to bring his sound bang up to date. In 1998 Jet was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award from Fender in acknowledgement of his historic contribution to raise the profile of bass guitar playing. Now, in 2010 Jet has been awarded the MBE in the New Year’s Honours list. With his health hopefully continuing to improve again – Jet hopes to start gigging once again. If all goes well he will be appearing on shows with John Leyton and Mike Berry where he will be backed by the Flames. Happy New Year Jet!
Rob
(PS: I originally prepared this info last year for the Amersham R'n'R Club. However - I managed to wipe it from my PC - so many thanks to Ralph Gowling, my fellow 'Elderly Brother', who had kept his copy on file.)