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REVIEW: "SHADOWING THE HITS"



From: Shadsfax Issue 48 (2005) 4–5

Hank Marvin
"Shadowing The Hits"
Recall SMDCD511 [2CD]
Released August 2004/ repressing September 2004 see text below


CD1 Don’t Talk / Janine / Tahlia Take Your Time / The Trouble With Me Is You [single edit] / Just Another Heartbreak / The Hawk And The Dove / Leila (Danny’s Got A Song) / Rainy Day Goodbye / All Alone With Friends / Another Day In Paradise / Everybody Wants To Rule The World / Sylvia / Pipeline / Into The Light / (Everything I Do) I Do It For You / Rikki Don’t Lose That Number / Jessica / Road Train

CD2 Living Doll / Wired For Sound / Travellin’ Light / The Young Ones / Carrie / The Day I Met Marie / Devil Woman / Summer Holiday / We Don’t Talk Anymore / Oxygène (Part IV) / Mrs Robinson / Space Oddity / I Will Always Love You / The Crying Game / Heartbeat / Rocket Man / Wichita Lineman / Live And Let Die

This set, equipped with five and a half pages of text from Michael Heatley, neatly combines nine tracks from Hank Marvin’s early, predominantly vocal, solo pieces for Polydor with nine instrumentals apiece from the albums ‘Into The Light’ (1992), ‘Hank Plays Cliff’ (1995), and ‘Heartbeat’ (1993), in that order. As there are plenty of uptempo numbers, ‘Shadowing The Hits’ offers a satisfying complement to another 2CD budget issue, ‘Guitar Ballads’ (Union Square Music: Metro METRDCD 528, February 2004). Initially, the second disc of ‘Shadowing’ was found to suffer from pronounced drop-outs, but these were rectified on a repressed version issued a month or so later.

The notes seem, on the most charitable interpretation, to have been hastily put together. Facts and figures are fine in the main, after a distinctly unpromising start (there were no Shadows on the scene "in 1958", a case of trying to say too much within too short a compass). Stylistically however it is not impressive, the aberrations I would say going beyond the sloppy proof-reading that often afflicts sleeve notes, with misapplied apostrophes, shaky syntax and awesome longwindedness: “We also include here its B-side, the instrumental Janine, its non-album B-side, not found on the album …” Why no comment on the track’s extreme rarity on CD, a definite plus-point for this particular product?

MC



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