hank.htm

Alternative title: - "Guitars to The Stars (The other side of the Screwdriver)"

Hank's famous red Fender Stratocaster and "Don't Cry For Me Argentina".

Hank Marvin's famous red Fender Stratocaster... Buddy Holly played a Fender Stratocaster and Hank Marvin of The Shadows soon got one too. It was the famously iconic red "waggle arm" axe that the band recorded all of their early hits with. "Apache", "Man of Mystery", "Wonderful Land" and many other tracks were done using this particular instrument.

Previously, Hank had played a Guyatone (I can't find a picture of the exact model) and legend has it that on early Cliff recordings, you could hear the bottom "E" string clicking out of the bridge saddle and being popped back in by Hank.

No, I can't prove it but some nerd will doubtless jump on that one. Anyway, you don't get that with a Stratocaster (™®).

In the early 60's a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar cost £145 (but in guineas) and with the national average wage being (much) less than £10, was completely out of reach for most people. Like most other guitar-besotted youths of the time, I regularly gazed at the catalogue illustrating the Fender Stratocaster with the aid of a torch under the bedclothes, dreaming of owning such an instrument. It had been upon hearing "Apache" that I was turned on to that sound and knew it to be where I wanted to go and be. Eventually, that's what happened and after making many weird and wonderful stringed instruments at home on the bedroom table, I became a full-time electric guitar technician and mechanic in 1972.

Moving on to 1977, Alan Jones had begun to play with The Shadows, deputising on bass, touring the world. He'd been to Bruce Welch's mansion and there had seen that famous old red guitar on display in a glass case. A "bolt-together" electric guitar, which the Fender Stratocaster is, inevitably settles down after a few years of transport and playing and goes "out of set", due to compression of the wood fibres under pressure from the screws which hold it together. This had happened to the beloved and famous red 'Strat' and for some years, Hank had been using a "Burns Marvin" - a thing with a scroll headstock. Their sound had completely changed (for the worse) and they were totally out of fashion.

The Fender Stratocaster was also way out of fashion by 1965. The Beatles had used Gretsch and Rickenbacker guitars and the sound of the world of pop and rock had completely changed. This had meant that my dream of owning a Fender Stratocaster guitar was easily realised and, with the help of my mum, I bought a second-hand one in 1966 for £45, complete with hard case and original instruction leaflet. It was a 1959 "sunburst" finish and would now easily fetch in excess of £20,000 at auction but I swapped it in 1967 for a cheap acoustic "Eko" guitar after hearing Charlie Byrd's "Blues for Night People" - a wonderful album, still. But, Dohhh! nonetheless...

Alan Jones asked Bruce Welch if he would allow the famous guitar to be set up (serviced) by me and Bruce said OK. The instrument ended up on my work bench and I stood and marvelled at it's very prescence. The neck was the most exotic piece of "Bird's eye" maple I had ever seen but somebody had sprayed the body white (yechh!). Here was the actual magnet in the coil which had picked up the steel string's vibration, sent it down the wire to the amplifier, pumped it out into the recording studio air via the loudspeaker, entered the microphone in the studio, down that wire into the control desk, thence on to the tape and futher on to the disk-cutting lathe. From there it had gone to the pressing plant and distribution to the radio station, on to the turntable, up the stylus arm, along the wire to the transmitter, through the air to the radio receiver, around that circuitry and out of the loudspeaker, through the air and into my ear, fundamentally turning me on to electric guitar, wholesale. Quite a journey...

That magnet was now on my bench and I was going to service the instrument that had shaped my entire working career. In those days I was charging maybe £10 for a thorough and complete service to an electric guitar. This involved filing the wear out of the frets and further sculpturing them back to a polished profile, tensioning the neck truss rod mechanism, tightening the neck attachment bolts, servicing the internal electric circuitry, setting the action and harmonic string length adjustments, play-testing the thing when strung up with new strings and balancing the tremolo system. It was something I had got really slick at and was performing quickly and efficiently on a regular basis.

That was exactly the job I did on the famous Hank Marvin red Stratocaster... Alan Jones picked up the guitar and returned it to Bruce Welch, who immediately passed it on to Hank Marvin, who suddenly saw his old buddie rejuvinated back to its old (as new) state and condition, as delivered from Buddy Holly (according to legend via Alan Jones, depping bass player for the Shadows - 1974 1977 and +).

The Shadows thereupon went straight into the recording studio, together with the old favourite "Strat" and put down the track: - "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" as an instrumental and it was released to much acclaim, their old original sound having been retrieved "from the abyss". This was the sound that all of their old fans had been missing and the track went quickly to No. 1 in the singles chart in the U.K. and around the world.

For me, I would have done the job for nothing just for the experience but I got my £10 service fee, which probably turned into Guiness that night.

Alternative title: - "Guitars to The Stars" & "The other side of the Screwdriver"

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Some Shadows fans: - Ken and Noel