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Didn't mean "only copy players" were influenced, just
that a lot of the bands playing the Shadows sound,
especially today, are copy bands, as opposed to cover
or original bands. The Shadows also launched some very
good inspired-by bands and spin-offs, as you
mentioned. Jet Harris and Tony Meehan, the Tornados
("Telstar" fame, not the Tornadoes), and more.
It's interesting how you look at it, and you bring up
a couple of additional interesting points.
US rock instro evolved past the Ventures and the
Fireballs through surf, and through fuzz (Davie Allan,
etc.), and through a plethora of psych instros, though
not as band main sounds. Continued evolution is a key
difference.
Also, you link the Shadows by extension through later
influential players, but that's also true then for the
Ventures via surf and beyond. Many, if not most of the
so-called garage band guitarists started out playing
surf, often listing the Lively Ones and others as
influences. Bands as different as the Sons of Champlin
(Bill Champlin cites San Jose's Torquays as a major
influence), the Syndicate of Sound, the Chocolate
Watchband, the Other Side/Bogus Thunder, the Standells
(Dicky Dodd was in Eddie and the Showmen), Dave Myers
and his Disciples, and even Iron Butterfly (lots of
surf guitar in some of their songs, and they did
instros as well), plus early Grateful Dead (there's
tape of them doing "Wipe Out" and "Ghost Riders"), the
Sons of Adam and the Other Half (Randy Holden), and
many more.
It gets really murky if you use the by-extension
influence line. More directly, guitarists influenced
by guitarists, you can at least draw some connections.
On the US side, the Ventures direct list is greatly
diluted by the fact that there were so many more
influences at work at the time. Even is you only look
at
The influences that were likely on the radio at the
time these tow very important bands formed their
sound, it's markedly different. The UK, as I
understand it, was very limited. The US, on the other
hand, and particularly the Pacific Northwest, was full
of sounds on the radio and at local teen dances that
were the underpinnings of the entire British Blues/R&B
evolution via Cyril Davies and Alexis Koerner, both if
the seminal Blues Incorporated birthed by trad jazzman
Chris Barber. AM radio carried the R&B, the rock 'n'
roll, the exotica, jazz, etc. of the day, and the frat
rock sound was already entrenched via a hundred bands
from the Wailers, Paul Revere, etc. Hell, there was
already a Northwest R&B instro sound being birthed
that was like the inverse of what Graham Bond did in
the UK.
The majority of the American response to the British
Invasion was via what we now call the garage bands or
sixties punk bands, who drew heavily on what grew out
of the seed that Chris Barber planted, and many of
those guitarists had cut their teeth on surf, some in
bands, some in their bedrooms.
Another difficulty with players pointing to
influences, they seem to often cite more familiar
names. I have found in some cases (Bill Champlin is a
good example), that when you dig a little past the
answer, you discover that they played surf, that they
were affected by the Ventures or Dick Dale, or a local
band like the Torquays.
Phil
--- ipongrac <> wrote:
> Which actually also contradicts Phil's claim that
> the Shadows reated only copy-cat bands that did
> not evolve the music much.
>
> Well, I would agree if the music we're talking
> about is strictly r&r instrumentals. The fact
> is that we saw much greater evolution of rock
> instros in the US as part of the surf scene,
> than we did in England and Europe as a result
> of the popularity of the Shadows (though there
> were quite a few great, unknown bands that did
> a lot of cool stuff without just slavishly
> copying the Shads - they're just not known very
> well to most US surf fans, bands like the
> Hunters, the Phantoms, the Outlaws, the Fentones,
> the Eagles, the Dakotas, the Cougars, etc.).
> but if we're talking about the evolution of the
> rock music as a whole (for better or worse)
> there's no doubt in my mind that the Shadows
> had much more impact than the Ventures.
> I mean, look at these bands: Queen, Pink Floyd,
> Deep Purple, Dire Straits, etc., etc. Now give
> me the names of some huge (non-instrumental)
> sixties, seventies, or eighties band where the
> guitarist claimed the Ventures as the primary
> influence. (I'm sure there are some, but none
> come to mind.) So, I think the Shadows created
> much more rock evolution (again, in many cases
> for the worse) than the Ventures.
>
> It is also for this reason that I would say that
> the Shadows were VERY influential in the US!
> However, the influence was quite indirect.
> Obviously the Shads were never able to break
> through here in any way shape or form (well,
> "You're The One That I Want" and another big hit
> from the movie Grease were written by one of the
> Shadows...), but their indirect influence was huge.
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