The Shadows - The First 20 Years at the Top: 1959-1979 (1995)

Tracklist

CD1
01. Feelin' Fine
02. Don't Be a Fool (With Love)
03. Driftin'
04. Jet Black
05. Saturday Dance
06. Lonesome Fella
07. Apache
08. Quartermaster's Stores
09. The Stranger
10. Man of Mystery
11. F.B.I.
12. Midnight
13. The Frightened City
14. Back Home
15. Kon-Tiki
16. 36-24-36
17. The Savage
18. Peace Pipe
19. Wonderful Land
20. Stars Fell On Stockton
21. Guitar Tango
22. What a Lovely Tune
23. The Boys
24. Dance On
25. All Day

CD2
01. Foot Tapper
02. The Breeze and I
03. Atlantis
04. I Want You To Want Me
05. Shindig
06. It's Been a Blue Day
07. Geronimo
08. Shazam
09. Theme For Young Lovers
10. This Hammer
11. The Rise and Fall of Flingel Bunt
12. It's a Man's World
13. Rhythm and Greens
14. The Miracle
15. Genie With the Light Brown Lamp
16. Little Princess
17. Mary-Anne
18. Chu Chi
19. Stingray
20. Alice In Sunderland
21. Don't Make My Baby Blue
22. My Grandfather's Clock
23. The War Lord
24. I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Arthur
25. I Met a Girl

CD3
01.Late Night Set
02. A Place In the Sun
03. Will You Be There?
04. The Dreams I Dream
05. Scotch On the Socks
06. Maroc 7
07. Bombay Duck
08. Tomorrow's Cancelled
09. Somewhere
10. Running Out of World
11. Dear Old Mrs Bell
12. Trying To Forget the One You Love
13. Slaughter On Tenth Avenue
14. Turn Around and Touch Me
15. Jungle Jam
16. Let Me Be the One
17. Run Billy Run
18. It'll Be Me Babe
19. Another Night
20. Love Deluxe
21. Don't Cry For Me Argentina
22. The Theme From 'the Deer Hunter' (Cavatina)
23. Rodrigo's Guitar Concerto De Aranjuez
24. Heart of Glass
25. Riders In the Sky

Albums are all fine and well, but if you really want to know what made a band tick during the first half of the 1960s, you need to listen to the singles. It was singles, after all, that consumed the lion's share of the market - singles by which a band's fame and acclaim were judged, and singles by which their star rose and fell. Three hits in a row, you were the biggest thing in the world. A flop for the fourth and you were dead meat. Most compilations today prefer to avoid this simple fact, preferring to delve into albums and archives in a desperate attempt to wrest away the last buck in the buyer's pocket. But there's still a handful that know how history is best served - the Rolling Stones' Singles Collection and Cliff Richard's six-LP Story paramount among them - and The First 20 Years at the Top is a worthy addition to that roll call. Three CDs compile every A-side and the majority of the B-sides the Shadows released in the U.K. between their formation in the late '50s and their departure from EMI in 1980. Programmed with strict chronology, the box paints a picture of the band that no other collection has ever managed - and that includes the six-CD 1958-1966 box set. The set opens with the two 45s the band cut as the Drifters during 1958-1959, before they encountered a better-known American band of the same name. There, listeners hear the young rockers at their most guileless, innocent, and derivative; there, too, listeners discover that "Mary Anne," the 1965 single that introduced their singing voices to the record-buying public, was not that much of a departure after all. Both the band's first and third 45s (plus the occasional past B-side) were also unashamedly vocal numbers. Still, it was as instrumentalists (and, courtesy of Hank Marvin, guitar gods) that the Shadows made their name, and across the rest of disc one, and great swathes of the other two, their prowess is as breathtaking today as it ever was at the time. Even more rewarding is the discovery that the band's mid- to late-'70s output is often as striking as their '60s material. Having disbanded in 1969, the Shadows reformed in 1973 and, as though they'd never been away, proceeded to unleash both some startling pop ("Let Me Be the One") and some virtuosic instrumentals. "Don't Cry for Me Argentina," "Cavatina," and even Blondie's "Heart of Glass" aren't simply executed with consummate style - that, after all, was the Shadows' raison d'être. They also pack a passion that is undimmed from the halcyon days of "Apache" and "Wonderful Land" - 20 years at the top indeed!

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