| Jet Harris | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Terence Harris |
| Born | 6 July 1939 Kingsbury, North London, England |
| Died | 18 March 2011 (aged 71) Winchester, England |
| Occupations | Bassist |
| Instruments | Bass guitar (4 & 6 string), guitar |
| Years active | 1952–2010 |
| Associated acts | The Shadows, Jeff Beck Group, The Vipers Skiffle Group |
| Website | www.jetharris.biz |
Jet Harris MBE (6 July 1939 – 18 March 2011), born Terence Harris, was an English musician. He was the bass guitarist of The Shadows until April 1962, and had subsequent success as a soloist and as a duo with the drummer Tony Meehan.[1]
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Harris, the only child[2] of Bill and Winifred Harris,[3] was born Terence Harris at Honeypot Lane, Kingsbury, North London, England.[4] His prowess as a sprinter at Dudden Hill secondary modern school earned him the nickname Jet.[5] Although he learned to play clarinet as a teenager, he made his own four-string double bass to play in a jazz group and later graduated to a professionally made double bass. In 1958, while playing jazz with drummer Tony Crombie and his group the Rockets, Crombie got a Framus bass guitar for Harris, making him one of the first British exponents of the instrument.[5] He subsequently was given by Cliff Richard the first Fender Bass (red) guitar in the UK in 1960 soon after Hank Marvin received his Fender Stratocaster (red) guitar. Both instruments were used in The Young Ones film while The Shadows played 'The Savage' (showing the famous Shadows' walk) to an invited audience of teenagers.
He played in several groups including the Vipers Skiffle Group and the Most Brothers before, in 1959, joining Cliff Richard's backing group the Drifters,[6] who later changed their name to The Shadows at Harris's suggestion. In 1959, after the neck of his Framus was terminally damaged in a dressing room accident, he was presented by the importers with a Fender Precision Bass, one of the first to come to Britain from the United States.
Harris also contributed vocally, adding backup harmonies and occasional lead vocals. He had a trademark scream used in the Shadows' "Feeling Fine" and Cliff Richard's "Do You Wanna Dance?"
In Mike Read's book The Story of the Shadows Harris lays the blame for the start of his depression and related alcohol addiction with Carol Costa, whom he married in 1959.[2] She, the first of Harris’s four wives, had an affair with Cliff Richard, and remains the only woman known definitively to have slept with Richard.[7]
In 1962, he left the Shadows following disagreements (documented in The Story of The Shadows, written by the group with Mike Read).[8] He had been forced to resign (ie a constructive dismissal) after Bruce Welch made an off-hand remark about his wife's ongoing affair with Richard. He had never been given time off from the Shadows during 1959-62 to facilitate a reconciliation with his wife and/or deal with his depression and alcoholism.
He signed with Decca and released solo instrumental and vocal work with some success. Then, as part of a duo with former Shadows drummer Tony Meehan, he topped the UK Singles Chart for three weeks in early 1963 with "Diamonds".[9] Harris and Meehan followed this with two further hit singles, "Scarlett O'Hara" (also written by Jerry Lordan) a UK #2, and "Applejack" (composed by Les Vandyke) reaching UK #4 also in 1963.[9] Harris's singles were relatively unusual in that they made prominent use of the bass as a lead instrument which was an idea he got from Big Jim Sullivan, and the best of them—"Diamonds," "The Man With the Golden Arm", and "Man From Nowhere"—had a menacing, shuddering bass reminiscent of the best James Bond soundtracks.[4] Harris was partly responsible for helping both Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones break into the music business. Page's first major session was as a rhythm guitarist on "Diamonds", in late 1962. After "Diamonds" became a hit, Harris and Meehan hired Jones to play bass in their touring band.[10] There were several court appearances involving drunkenness and violent behaviour [5] before the partnership with Meehan came to an abrupt end in September 1963 when a car crash (in which his girl-friend, singer Billie Davis,[11] was also injured), meant that this success did not last long.[4][12] Harris attempted a solo comeback in 1966 and was briefly in the line-up of the Jeff Beck Group in 1967, but somewhat fell out of the music industry.[4] He then worked variously as a labourer, bricklayer, porter in a hospital, bus conductor, and as a seller of cockles on the beach in Jersey.
Harris was declared bankrupt in 1988.[3] The BBC reported that it took Harris 30 years of heavy drinking before he finally admitted to being an alcoholic and sought help. For many years Harris made a point in his stage shows of saying how long it had been since he quit drinking, winning applause from audiences who knew how it had wrecked his career in the 60s. Harris still played occasionally, with backing band the Diamonds or as a guest with the Rapiers, and teamed up with Tony Meehan for a support performance in Cliff Richard's 1989 'The Event' concerts.
In 1998, he was awarded a Fender Lifetime Achievement Award for his role in popularising the bass guitar in Britain. He appeared annually in Bruce Welch's 'Shadowmania' and tours each year with the Rapiers (a Shadows tribute band) who are recording artists in their own right. He recorded continuously from the late 1980s with a variety of collaborators including Tangent, Alan Jones (also an ex-Shadows bassist who retired due to a serious car accident), Bobby Graham and the Local Heroes. His previous problems with stage nerves had seemingly disappeared, and 2006 saw Harris's first single release in over forty years, "San Antonio".
In 2007 Harris was invited by legendary UK singer Marty Wilde to be special guest on his 50th Anniversary tour. This culminated in an evening at the London Palladium with other guests including Wilde's daughters Kim and Roxanne, Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues, members of the original Wildcats - Big Jim Sullivan, Licorice Locking and Brian Bennett, who also joined Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch of the Shadows on stage with Wilde and his band the Wildcats (Neville Marten and Eddie Allen on guitar, Roger Newell bass, and Bryan Fitzpatrick, drums). The show's finale featured the closest thing to a Shadows reunion possible with Marvin, Welch, Harris and Brian Bennett (who in 1962 had replaced the late Tony Meehan) all appearing on stage with the show's company.
The evening was filmed and a DVD released, with Harris playing three tunes - "Diamonds", "Theme From Something Really Important" and "Scarlett O'Hara" - backed by the Wildcats.
So successful was this tour that Wilde repeated the invitation to join him on his 2010 Born To Rock And Roll tour, which finished in Basingstoke on November 20. Harris has said that this was his most enjoyable working experience in years.
In a December 2008 interview for the Daily Mail, Harris spoke about not having been invited to join the Shadows for their 50th anniversary, at the Royal Variety Performance.[13]
His fan club arranged a 70th birthday party for him on 5 July 2009, at the Winter Gardens, Weston-Super-Mare.[14] He resided in Bembridge, Isle of Wight.[15]
He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours.[16]
In 2010, Harris was presented with a special award from the US Fender guitar company for his services to their company in effectively launching their bass guitar in the UK in 1960.
Harris had 4 sons.[3] He was a heavy smoker[3] and died on 18 March 2011, two years after being diagnosed with cancer of unknown primary, at the home of his partner Janet Hemingway, in Winchester.[17][18][19][20]
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