Jet Harris

Terence "Jet" Harris MBE ( born July 6, 1939 in Kingsbury, England; † March 18, 2011 in Winchester ) was a British bass guitarist, who in the early 1960s with the Shadows as a duet with Tony Meehan great success with instrumental tracks had.

Life

In 1952, Terence Harris - his nickname "Jet" he had from his sprint talent in the school sports - the double bass and taught himself to play at. As a pioneer of the electric bass guitar, he was in his mid fifties soon in demand as a musician in various bands.

Then in 1958 he made ​​the acquaintance of Cliff Richard and shortly thereafter became a member of his backing band The Shadows. Until 1962 he was thus involved in all Cliff Richard hits, and also released as the Shadows from 1960 's instrumental tracks, he coined the Shadows sound decisive, in particular by his virtuoso, deposited with echo bass playing at Kon Tiki and 36 - 24-36. With these two pieces of bass emerged as the true solo instrument.

1961 began with the departure of drummer Tony Meehan fall apart the old Shadows cast. Meehan went as a producer for Decca Records, and as Jet Harris got out in 1962 after disagreements, Meehan gave him a recording contract with Decca. The cause of Jet Harris ' outright banishment from the Shadows was that he suffered from latent alcohol problems, which went so far that he drunk fell off the stage at a concert at the Palladium. His successor as bassist for the Shadows was briefly Brian " Liquorice " Locking. Irony of fate was that Jet Harris until his expulsion was the band leader and also had the honor of being the "Finder" of the band name The Shadows.

With instrumental versions of Besame mucho and the theme music from the movie "The Man with the Golden Arm" (The Man with the Golden Arm ), he showed that he was able to assert itself as a bass guitarist in the charts, the theme music reached number 12 on the British charts. Although he was already accompanied in these recordings by Tony Meehan on drums, but until 1963 they were officially on as a duo. In addition to that, Jerry Lordan, who had already written the Shadows - Super Hits Apache and Wonderful Land, gave them two more hit templates. And so their first joint work of Diamonds was a smooth number-one hit in the UK, with Scarlett O'Hara, they reached 2nd and 4th place with Applejack

Tragically, Harris was shortly afterwards very severely injured in a collision of his car with a bus and his recovery and the legal settlement dragged on so long out that by then his career was flattened. In 1966 he tried again and again with various projects, including 1967 in the Jeff Beck Group. In the meantime he had even given up music in favor of professional photography. Only since the 1990s, he turned back to the right music and also published two more albums. Jet Harris died on 18 March 2011 at the age of 71 years to cancer.

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