Bibek Acharya
It’s not hard to find traces of other artists in the music of The Beatles. For every innovation they put to tape, there’s always a Carl Perkins guitar lick or an Everly Brothers-style harmony to be found. Like all musicians, The Beatles found their sound by imitating other players, picking up tricks and techniques that they would morph and form into their own moulds.
There weren’t many rock bands in the world before The Beatles – most of their heroes were solo artists with frequently changing backing musicians, like Elvis Presley and Little Richard. But one major influence was The Shadows, the instrumental rock and roll band led by guitarist Hank Marvin. Although The Shadows were another backing band, specifically supporting Cliff Richard during his early career, they worked independently and managed to chart hits without their singer on numerous occasions.
In a somewhat ironic twist, The Beatles themselves acted as a backing band while attempting to get a recording contract. It was during their run playing gigs in Hamburg, Germany, when the band were approached to be Tony Sheridan’s backing group for a recording of ‘My Bonnie’. They agreed, and when they entered the studio, they were allowed to record two tracks without Sheridan. One of those tracks was an original instrumental called ‘Cry For a Shadow’.
“It was a bit disappointing because we’d been hoping to get a record deal for ourselves,” George Harrison recalled in Anthology. “Although we did ‘Ain’t She Sweet’ and the instrumental ‘Cry For A Shadow’ without Sheridan, they didn’t even put our name on the record.”Harrison was correct: the record was released as “Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers”. ‘Cry For a Shadow’ was the only composition ever credited to “Lennon-Harrison”, and was one of the only instrumentals the band ever recorded. The name of the track directly references The Shadows, as Lennon and Harrison were attempting to do their own version of The Shadows’ recording of ‘Apache’, a number one hit in the UK around that time.
“In Hamburg, we had to play so long, we actually used to play ‘Apache’,” Harrison recalled in 1987. “But John and I were just bullshitting one day, and he had this new little Rickenbacker with a funny kind of wobble bar on it. And he started playing that off, and I just came in, and we made it up right on the spot.” The truth is, they were just emulating their heroes.
It’s fair to say that in Britain, before The Beatles, there was Cliff Richard and The Shadows. The group were the closest thing Britain had to a rock ‘n’ roll band and drew on a lot of American inspiration with a slight British twist. While the band’s song ‘Move It’ and Richard’s performances definitely shaped some of their work, it was the way the band dressed that landed most heavily.
Harrison, later reflecting on his influence, commented: “Cliff Richards and the Shadows became the big thing. They all had matching ties and handkerchiefs and grey suits, but we were still doing Gene Vincent, Bo Diddley, you know, Ray Charles things. So when we got back to England that was the big thing.” The band had returned from Hamburg with their live show tuned, but their image was way off. “A year or so after that, When Brian Epstein came on the scene, he said, ‘You should smarten up because nobody wants to know you’”
