Heard lots of great tales about the general diamond-geezerness of Jet Harris. As a nipper, the first band whose albums I collected was The Shads and my first attempt to form a band was playing Shadows/Drifters covers. I even have JH’s autograph at home somewhere, which my mum picked up for me at a concert he gave in Leicester in 1974. Another pioneer of British rock, sadly missed.
An early music memory: aged 8, raving on to my Brahms and Mahler-loving dad about ‘Diamonds’ (Jet Harris and Tony Meehan, I believe) ……… I still have the single somewhere. I can her it now ……………..
I suppose that should prompt me to be a little more tolerant of some of the pop my youngest will insist on playing me!
oops, should really have read your initial post more carefully … the cllip clearly names Jet Harris & Tony Meehan.
My mate is a huge Shadows fan. When I told him about Jet’s passing, his first comment was “Was it alcoholism? that killed him?”. Poor old Jet had a bad problem with the bottle which is what led him to be asked to leave the Shadows.
I saw Jet when he had just left The Shadows on a package show headlined by Sam Cooke and Little Richard.
He had just released his first single “Besame Mucho” and was playing a 6-string Fender bass which was unknown in the UK at the time.He also was doing a few vocals – I recall a rather shaky version of “Bonie Moronie”. He did appear a little worse for wear when we saw him. This was before he joined forces with his old Shadow mate, Tony Meehan.