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Very sad to see that Jet Harris died today. His bass was the sound of the sixties.
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I remember him (I think) blond one with the Shadows. I believe he had an illness for some time in later years. RIP
Vera
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From the BBC News page:-
18 March 2011 Last updated at 17:07
Jet Harris, The Shadows bassist, dies aged 71
Harris is reputed to be one of the first musicians in the UK to play the bass guitar in the UK
R.I.P.
The Shadows Jet Harris, the original bass player with The Shadows, has died of cancer aged 71.
The guitarist, who played on number one hits including Apache, died at his partner's home in Winchester, his agent Peter Stockton said.
Sir Cliff Richard paid tribute to his former bandmate, saying: "Jet was exactly what The Shadows and I needed - a backbone holding our sound together."
Earlier this month, Harris cancelled all his appearances due to ill health.
Linda
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So sad to hear of the death of Jet Harris of The shadows. may he Rest in Peace and condolences to his family and friends.
B
19.55hrs Spain
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That is so sad.
We are told that people are living longer, yet more and more I know of friends and read of people in the news that have died of cancer.
R.I.P.
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Joy that is exactly what I said to OH earlier today. We are told that more and more ppl are being cured of cancer, but more and more are getting it. Lots of fund raising for cures are needed, but what about finding the causes of this dreadful disease.
R.I.P. Jet Harris.
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I put up a thread about him not so long ago, I think. Will try and find it.
It's sad that yet another person has to die after such suffering with cancer for so long.
He will always be remembered - rest in peace Jet.
Lizx
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Can't find the thread now but it was after I read an article about him in Take a Break.
Lizx
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This is similar to what I wrote about in my thread mentioned earlier:
Me and my Shadow ... how a fan waited decades to win the pop star she adoredBy JANET HEMINGWAY
06 April 2008
It was, without doubt, the highlight of my young life. Standing outside the stage door of Sheffield's City Hall in 1962, my heart raced as Jet Harris, bass player of The Shadows, sauntered towards me.
Unable to pay for a ticket to the concert, I'd been waiting for three hours in the biting cold for a glimpse of my idol.
Now he was here, and I was too nervous to speak. Instead, I just stuck my autograph book under his nose.
I watched as he signed his name and, for a split second, our eyes met.
For a working-class girl from Barnsley, it didn't get much better than that.
...
If you'd told me then that 45 years later we would meet again, fall in love and share a home together, I think I would have died from shock.
Like thousands of schoolgirls, I was obsessed with The Shadows and thought Jet, with his quiffed, blond hair and perfectly chiselled face, was the most beautiful man on the planet - far sexier than Cliff.
I had a poster of him on my bedroom wall and kept a scrapbook which I filled with stories and photographs of him from the music magazines.
My father was a steel worker, and I was given two shillings and sixpence a week pocket money, but I used to save it up to buy the band's singles: tracks like Apache, FBI and Kon-Tiki.
As the years went by, I became increasingly fanatical.
When I saw a photograph of the band posing on a hillside where The Dam Busters was filmed, I asked my friend Susan to go there with me so we could stand on the exact spot.
We took a train and then a bus into the countryside outside Sheffield and climbed into the hills, comparing the rocks and trees in the photograph to what we could see in front of us.
When we thought we'd found the place I dug up the earth where I thought Jet had stood and put it in a polythene bag to take home.
I kept it for years in a box with all my other souvenirs until we moved home and my mother threw it out.
Of course, the most exciting moment was meeting my idol outside City Hall in Sheffield.
Today everyone assumes the first band that inspired true, scream-until-you-faint devotion among female fans was The Beatles but, in fact, the girls screamed just as loudly for The Shadows.
Even standing outside the hall, the noise was astonishing.
As it happened, that was one of the last gigs Jet played with The Shadows, whom he left in 1962 after a disagreement.
He launched a solo career and topped the charts with the single Diamonds in January 1963.
But later that year he was almost killed when his chauffeur-driven limo collided with a bus.
He suffered serious head injuries and, although he recovered physically, he remained deeply traumatised.
He stopped working and started drinking instead. With great sadness I followed his downward spiral.
He admits he spent the next 30 years as an alcoholic, blowing all the money he had made in the music business and struggling to make ends meet with a series of temporary jobs, from bus conductor and bricklayer to cockle-picker and hospital porter.
Nevertheless, I remained a fan.
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After leaving school I became a legal secretary, settled down with a partner, started a family and moved to Hampshire, but I still collected newspaper articles about him and, although I no longer had his poster on my wall, I kept it folded up in a box.
Then, about ten years ago, Jet finally kicked the booze, regained his confidence and started playing music again with a band called The Rapiers.
When my son, Thomas, discovered on the internet in 2006 that Jet was due to perform in nearby Fareham, I bought a ticket.
It was to change my life for ever.
The gig was excellent and, just as I'd done in 1962, I queued up afterwards to get Jet's autograph.
But this time I plucked up the courage to talk to him, telling him about our first meeting in Sheffield.
We started reminiscing about the Sixties then, suddenly, he said: "You'd better give me your phone number."
I wrote it on a piece of paper, but added the words "Ring me as a friend", because, although I was single by then, he was married.
To my amazement, two days later he phoned.
He seemed very shy and a bit tongue-tied, but after talking about the weather on the Isle of Wight, where he has a cottage, and how the herons had been eating the fish in his garden pond, he asked me out to lunch.
We went to a country pub just outside Winchester, where I live, and got on really well, even though I felt all in a dither.
He obviously didn't look the same as he had when I first met him: "blond, mean, moody and magnificent", as one music journalist once described him.
Instead, he was now grey, thick around the middle and balding.
But, even so, I liked him straight away and we really hit it off.
After lunch he went back to the Isle of Wight and I went home to my little mews house where I live with Thomas, 17, and my 19-year-old daughter Alice.
Two weeks later Jet rang again. He said his wife, another Janet, had just left him for someone else. Could he come and see me?
He sounded in a really bad way, and as I knew he was a recovering alcoholic I was worried he'd start drinking, so I said yes - and he shot over to Winchester.
That night, one thing led to another and he ended up staying for three days.
We explored the local countryside and spent hours talking and getting to know each other.
Over the next few months we fell in love and became almost inseparable.
I know it's difficult to believe that the crush I had as a schoolgirl should turn into a love affair at my age, but it's just wonderful to be with him.
Free of alcohol, he now has amazing energy.
I go to all his gigs with him and last year we travelled 7,000 miles in two months, zigzagging around the country with the Marty Wilde show.
We'll be on the road again this year, going all over Britain as well as Finland and France.
Jet has also just finished a new CD, The Journey, and he believes it's the best thing he's ever done.
Rubbing his grey head on the day he finished it, he told me: "Just because there's snow on the chimney, it doesn't mean there's no fire in the furnace."
I've now taken out my old poster of Jet, ironed out all the creases, had it framed and put it up on my bedroom wall again.
I also found another souvenir that seemed extraordinarily prophetic.
While on holiday in Rhyl in 1962 I had a little necklace disc engraved at a seaside stall.
And there it was in my box of memorabilia, still on its silvery chain, with the words "Janet and Jet" as good as new.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-557439/Me-Shadow---fan-waited-decades-win-pop-star-adored.html#ixzz1H6hDPa8m
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It's nice to think Jet found happiness at the end of his life. Such a shame he had to suffer the dreaded cancer tho, it does seem to be rampaging on with many people I know fighting the illness and some not winning the fight.
I have lost too many people to cancer to count.
May they all rest in peace, good music from Jet now whereever they are.
Lizx
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