Bruce With the white Telecaster

[Teflon]

I've read old interviews with Bruce where he has said the white Telecaster was just used as a prop for the album cover and that he couldn't recall ever actually playing it. I know that footage exists of him playing it though, so he was just "mis-remembering" (hardly surprising given how long ago it was, and how many gigs he must have played). However, I have to admit I'd not seen this particular clip before, from Cliffs ATV show playing "Mumbling Mosie".



No doubt already been seen by many members here, but new to me. A great performance by Cliff & The Shads . Really wish they would re-master all these old clips and give them a proper Blu Ray release - never going to happen though.

Clif

[JimN]

One thing you can see from this clip is that it was taped after The Shadows entered the JMI deal for loan-guitars (Jet is playing the red bass adorned with his initials), which casts doubt upon the usually-supposed date some time around the spring of 1961. Hank is still playing 34346.

The website http://www.cliffrichardsongs.com/crseries/ indicates that these shows were taped by ATV in January 1961 for transmission over the following ten or twelve weeks. How reliable that is is anyone's guess, but it makes some sort of sense because of that mixture of guitars, still involving the 1959 Strat but also a new FR bass and the blonde Telecaster (or perhaps "one of the blonde Telecasters").

Bruce' does seem to have been fairly promiscuous in his use of electric guitars around that time: he was photographed with, and seen using, the sunburst Jazzmaster, his orange Gretsch 6120, the blonde Telecaster and the red R/N Strat delivered in the spring of 1961.

[dave robinson]

My guess is that Jennings had a consignment of various models of Fender guitars and were offering them to the Shads to try out and find the ones they liked best. That would be a very feasible explanation.

[GoldenStreet]

On Willie And The Hand Jive, from the 1961 ATV series, with the same Strat/Tele combination Jet is playing his sunburst PB...



Bill

[Iain Purdon]

They really were very good at all that. Great to see it again.

[George Geddes]

Many many years ago, I wrote an article for the SCOFA magazine about the 'Shadows sound'. I sent a pre-publication draft to Bruce. He phoned me and we went through the article, resulting in some useful snippets of information. However, he had absolutely no recollection of the all-white Fender lineup! I had to send him photos, both with the white Strat scratchplates and the later tortoiseshell ones.

It was clear in my mind that part of the Burns 'look' was based on making the guitars similar in colour scheme to the previous Strat lineup.

George

[Uncle Fiesta]

[quote="Teflon"] ... Really wish they would re-master all these old clips and give them a proper Blu Ray release - never going to happen though./quote]

Certainly not for that one - exploiting someone's speech impediment for musical purposes would surely be seen as politically incorrect these days!

[Didier]

I saw the shadows live on stage at the Paris Olympia in 1961, and Bruce was playing a white Tele, while Hank had the fiesta red Strat and Jet a sunburst PB.

Didier

[JimN]

I saw the shadows live on stage at the Paris Olympia in 1961, and Bruce was playing a white Tele, while Hank had the fiesta red Strat and Jet a sunburst PB.

Didier

I think we have previously established that this was December 1960, mon ami!

[RayL]

While the instruments are being played live on the Mumbling clip, Wllie is being mimed to a backing track (apart from Cliff's vocal?). As discussed in previous threads, that means that the instruments seen on stage are not necessarily the instruments that were used for the track.