* Jet used to play stand up bass. He took lessons from the Ted Heath Band's bass maestro Sammy Stokes.
* Tony Crombie suggested that Jet should switch to electric bass guitar.
* Jet Harris was a UK pioneer of electric bass guitar -- deploying a Framus Star bass (Jet: "I practised playing it until my fingers bled.")
* Jet initially turned down Cliff's request to join the Drifters - until he noticed that "Move It" was climbing the charts.
* Jet Harris thought up the name the Shadows.
* Jet was the first in the UK to play a Fender Precision bass guitar.
* With Cliff Richard and the Shadows - Jet's chart career was staggering.
* Cliff/Shadows - singles: 18 hits - including 13 Top 5 hits (5 No.1 hits). 244 weeks on the singles charts.
* Cliff/Shadows -- EPs: 14 hits - including 12 Top 10 hits (4 No.1 hits). 351 weeks on the EP charts
* Cliff/Shadows -- LPs (including compilations & reissues): 18 hit LPs - including 14 Top 10 LPs (4 No.1 LPs). 352 weeks on the LP charts
* The Shadows - singles: 9 hits (all Top 10 hits - including 3 No.1 hits). 129 weeks on the singles chart.
* The Shadows - EPs: 10 hits - including 7 Top 10 hits (4 No.1 hits). 416 weeks on the EP charts.
* The Shadows - LPs (including reissues & compilations): 5 hit LPs - including 4 Top 10 LPs (3 No.1 LPs). 196 weeks on the LP charts.
* Jet Harris/Tony Meehan - singles: 5 hits - including 3 Top 10 hits (1 No.1 hit) - 56 weeks on the singles charts.
* Jet Harris/Tony Meehan - EPs: One No.3 hit - 21 weeks on the EP charts
* Jet Harris was a pioneer of 6-string bass playing. The sound was dubbed "The 6-string 'Thunder Thrill'."
* "The Shadows" was the first LP by a British group to top the LP charts. The Shadows were the first act to simultaneously hit No.1 on the singles, EP and LP charts.
* Jet has therefore appeared on 24 No.1 hit recordings - the singles include: "Living Doll", "Travelling Light", "Please Don't Tease", "I Love You", "The Young Ones", "Diamonds", "Apache", "Kon-Tiki" and "Wonderful Land".
* In 1998 Jet was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by Fender in recognition of his historic contribution to electric bass playing.
* "Nivram" has become a 'standard' and is acknowledged as a classic example of a bass guitar solo.
* Jet has continued to record and in 2007 "The Journey" saw him experimenting with new ideas and sounds.
* 2010 – Jet Harris MBE!
(Cliff & Shadows figures include double – sided hits)
Congratulations Jet! Rob
(Once again - my thanks to Ralph Gowling. Although I originally did this on his behalf last year - I managed to accidentally delete it all from my PC. Luckily Ralph still had the information still on file.)
