Shadows Version
The recording was done at the EMI Abbey Road Studio in London. Singer-guitarist Joe Brown had bought an Italian-built guitar echo chamber that he didn't like and gave it to Hank Marvin who developed a distinctive sound using it and the tremolo arm of his Fender Stratocaster. Bruce Welch borrowed an acoustic Gibson J200 guitar from Cliff Richard, the heavy melodic bass was by Jet Harris, percussion was by Tony Meehan and Cliff Richard, who played a Chinese drum at the beginning and end to provide an atmosphere of stereotypically Native American music.
Record producer Norrie Paramor preferred the flip side, an instrumental of the army song "The Quartermaster's Stores", now called "The Quatermasster's Stores" after the TV series Quatermass. Paramor changed his mind after his daughter preferred "Apache". It has been cited by a generation of guitarists as inspirational and is considered one of the most influential British rock 45s of the pre-Beatles era. The Shadows stated –
| “ | What's the most distinctive sound of our group ? We often wondered what it is ourselves. Really, it is the sound we had when we recorded "Apache" – that kind of Hawaiian sounding lead guitar... plus the beat. | ” |
NME – September 1963
Read more about this topic: Apache (instrumental)
Famous quotes containing the words shadows and/or version:
“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 5:15.
See Exodus 22:8 for a different version of this fourth commandment.