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Alvin Stardust
retrieved his first guitar in 2004, which he lost nearly
half a century ago. The prized instrument was signed
by a host of stars, including Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran,
Bill Haley, Chuck Berry and the Beatles so he was
devastated when his mother misplaced it. Nearly 50
years later, after his mother's death, he found it in a
dusty box at the back of his parents' garage in
Nottingham. Worth 1 million pounds, it has been placed in
a bank vault. |
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 Colin Miles had started putting together series of great
retrospective compilations, firstly for EMI, then on his
own "See For Miles" label. In EMI's NUT EP series in the late 1970's,
Shane's Fentons' outing (NUT4) featured all four hits. This was closely followed by the excellent twenty-track
retrospective LP on the See For Miles label which left virtually nothing
out from Shane. The Fentones on the other hand had but a sole
entry on this collection, which was strangely none of their four
released sides as such. Their track was the (uncredited) alternate
take of "The Breeze And I" - only two takes had been recorded, the other
cut of course
making it onto their final vinyl 45 with the additional acoustic guitar overdub by
Jerry Wilcock. Rumour has
it that there are a few goodies lurking in EMI's vast vaults somewhere, plus
some editions of "Saturday Club" still exist. (See the "Recordings"
page for more.) It appears that
the 1962 "Swing Along With Shane" radio series though may
sadly have been lost for good unless any home recordings were made, un
unlikely scenario considering the expensive nature of reel-to-reel
recorders and tapes at the time. Nevertheless, there still seems to be plenty
of material available for release. A few years back EMI did express interest in a
brand new compilation that would have collected some of the finer sides and
include some obscure, rare and (hopefully) unissued cuts still lurking in
the vaults. There are
some known candidates, including "That Old Ya-Ya Feeling" which made it
onto Scopitone film "video" jukeboxes on the Continent.
Then there is the stereo version of "Somebody Else, Not Me" from the
soundtrack LP of the film "It's All Happening". Other
tracks exist, dotted around the "Saturday Club" shows that survived and
often in reasonable quality too through off-air fan recordings, and in
spite of the BBC's best efforts to clear the vaults of a lot of
recordings considered of no further use during the 60's and 70's.
To be fair to the BBC with the high cost of new tapes, the storage of
what was often non-repeatable recordings saw all television broadcasting
companies of the day - including the ITV regional broadcasters - also
fell foul in this way to a greater or lesser extent. It was worse
for the BBC who had amassed thousands of hours of radio broadcasts as
well. If only they knew then what they know now....
Some Fentones
tracks cut for EMI have seen the light of day on a few
instrumental compilations in recent years. "Gringo" was originally
to be the follow-up to "The Mexican", while the more ambitious "Take
Five" and the easy-going group original "Micks' tune" are good examples
of the diverse material they attempted. Incidentally, "Gringo" and
"Mick's tune" appeared in stereo. (EMI have worked hard to uncover
many hitherto unheard stereo mixes from many artists in their 60's
catalogue - on a few occasions they went back to the four-track master
tapes where still in existence to produce virgin stereo mixes of tracks
previously heard only in mono.) A couple of tracks from later in
their career with Duffy Power post-Shane also saw the light of day, featuring a guesting
Ginger Baker on drums. These finally saw release on a good Duffy
Power retrospective but who knows if there is possibly more where they
came from. While so far that
particular comprehensive collection project didn't quite come to into being
a new CD compilation of all the groups remastered sides was released
(with sleevenotes by Yours Truly - ssh) and especially for the instro
fans managed to collect up all four Fentones released sides in one hit.
Still, should any adventurous soul decide to collect these dispersed
recordings together and compile said suggested catch-all-plus-rarities
collection, it'd be most welcome - I'm sure they'd shift a few copies.
Decent music can be thin on the ground at times.
WRAP
 The
biggest style change in Nineteen-Sixties UK Pop Land was in group
presentation - the focus moved toward the concept of the group as a unit
without a discernible leader. When George Martin realised that the
Beatles - four diverse personalities providing much charm, wit and
expertise - worked as a collective unit he promoted a powerful group
template that could survive occasional line-up changes (if necessary)
and as long as the overall style didn't change too rapidly it had a
chance for a lengthy survival. This shift in the Pop
Landscape was important in the development of Rock but was not quite
so dramatic as some historians would have us believe. Shane Fenton
was a popular guy on the UK Pop circuit whose career was doubtless
inspired by the hugely successful Cliff Richard and the Shadows.
It was no accident that Cliff's spectacular run of success which
survived the Merseybeat onslaught is due to his career path being
synonymous with that of the equally-successful Shadows,
THE British group before the Beatles. Their unparalleled success
doubtless supported Cliff in the Beat Group era and being industrious
and
talented original songwriters proved no handicap either. |
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1962 saw a calm
before the storm, where diverse styles and influences existed -
instrumental, pop, Jazz (trad and modern), folk, calypso, etc - and what
the future held was not yet quite clear, Jazz was even tipped to be the
next "big thing". With the Fentones disappearing from his
recordings and both acts often billed as separate acts, it was no
surprise when by 1963 Shane Fenton had become a solo singer proper.
With the benefit of hindsight though, it can be seen as an unfortunate
move as Decca's loss was proved Parlophone's success with the Beat Boom. Witness the leap then between
Shane's early 1963 release "A Fools Paradise" and the
Beat group sound of "Don't Do That" a mere twelve weeks later and you can see
the challenges promoting acts from before Merseybeat. It was just
a shame that that particular disc was with "instrumental accompaniment"
and not with "the Fentones". Had they kept mention of
his group it might have stood a better chance, however at that time the
full devastating effects of the groups scene of the Beat Boom were still
to be fully realised on solo singers.