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LES WOOSEY & MALCOLM CAMPBELL:
THE SHADOWS ON RADIO LUXEMBOURG



BONGO BLUES
(Norrie Paramor)

This Luxembourg outing, though of similar length, is a much more punchy affair than the standard studio cut (recorded October 1959 for release in January 1960). Hank's lead lines are more fluid and intricate —they can be followed reasonably clearly in some surviving copies, while others possess, in addition to a fair degree of static, whistles and other noise artefacts, an overpowering bass and horribly clattering percussion. It will have been recorded for the station among the first batch assembled over May-July 1960, at which stage the group's instrumental repertoire was limited in the extreme. There were BBC versions on 19 March and (live) 9 July of that year; the arrangement of the former, copies of which have been circulated in selections of early off-air recordings, is closer to the studio cut, while its lead guitar has much more of a clangorous, assertive ring to it than the Luxembourg example.



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