RCCD 3051 – Cliff Richard with The Drifters and The Shadows
(The Saturday Club sessions 1958-1960)
***Available at last, this 2 CD set is an extended version of our much-praised ten inch LP of the same title, released last year. These recordings are previously unissued on CD. Broadcast on the Light Programme’s Saturday Club in the 50s and 60s, we are fortunate that these masters of Cliff as a primal rocker have survived, enabling us to hear the early days of a kid with a very big future.
Two CDs and a 44-page booklet are enclosed, with notes by Rob Finnis, many illustrations and a detailed Saturday Club Session File.
*** Rock’n’Roll has become a generic term these days … it is even used in the USA to describe current recordings by artists that make genuine Rock’n’Roll fans cringe. Real Rock’n’Roll comes from the 50s and early 60s, and no matter how much they are imitated by tribute bands and the like, the originals remain the best.
***Cliff Richard soon hung up his Rock’n’Roll shoes (despite what he says on the last track of CD2 in this collection) as he became (shudder!) an ‘all-round entertainer’. We watched it happen. We could do nothing … the BBC and ITV TV shows of the time welcomed this taming of the Rock’n’Roll beast. They were never going to allow the likes of Vince Taylor and Screaming Lord Sutch into our living rooms; broadcasters had learned that teenagers were not a mass audience … but soon found out that their mums and dads “quite liked Cliff”. That settled it.
***But before Cliff slipped into a smart suit and tie and clipped his hair, there was a brief period when TV’s 'Oh Boy' and radio’s 'Saturday Club' featured just enough wild rockers to keep us watching and listening to them … after all, those shows were all there was. Cliff and the Drifters were stars of both programmes and, thanks to their almost instant baptism via live shows in theatres following the chart success of “Move It”, they were soon belting out quality Rock’n’Roll on the airwaves.
***In 1958, while not just Rock’n’Roll but teenagers themselves were regarded as a passing fad from which they would soon recover … and until pop music became historically interesting, the BBC had an unfortunate policy of saving for posterity everything in their output, except the actual recordings of live programmes. These tapes were ceremoniously wiped or taped over to save storage space and cost. Meanwhile, every memo, written instruction, script and probably, stationery requisition, was kept and carefully filed away. Thus we can read exactly what the Director-General thought of 'Saturday Club', but not hear much of what it sounded like … unless some enterprising music aficionado preserved a tape or copied the broadcast off the air.
***One such fan of country music, Rock’n’Roll and instrumental music was BBC engineer, Bernie Andrews. He engineered, and later produced, many 'Saturday Club' sessions, felt that history was being made and that the recordings he helped create should be preserved. Until his death in 2010 he continued to record off-air many BBC programmes so that he and others could hear them again. From his archive created in the 1950s and early 60s come the remarkable recordings on this CD set that show what a great rocker Cliff Richard was. Many of the recordings seem superior to the released records for energy and sheer enthusiasm. Cliff was lucky to have a great band from the start of his professional career … a driving rhythm section that soon became stars in their own right.
***A detailed booklet with notes by respected journalist and historian Rob Finnis tells the story of Cliff’s Rock’n’Roll years and is illustrated with rare photographs and memorabilia from the era. For historic reasons we have created two CDs containing tracks from 'Saturday Club':
***CD 1 features musical content from high-quality recordings plus some tracks of historical interest that were taped ‘off-air’ (and are therefore of a lesser quality); these have been gathered at the end of CD1 and do not appear on CD 2. On CD 2 we have included the music together with the introductions and interviews just as they were heard in the original broadcasts.
***Words alone cannot describe the music that captivated many teenagers in the 1950s and turned them into fans for the rest of their lives, but Cliff came pretty close when he sang, “Let me tell you baby, it’s called Rock’n’Roll”. For more proof, listen to this album. We are extremely fortunate that, thanks to Bernie Andrews, these masters of Cliff as a primal rocker have survived, enabling us to eavesdrop, if slightly eerily, into the early days of a kid with a very big future. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CD1: Music From Saturday Club 1958-1960 + Bonus Tracks 1. Dynamite! 2. I’m In Love Again 3. Guitar Boogie (The Drifters) 4. Dream Lover 5. Mean Streak 1:50 6. Driftin’ (The Drifters) 7. Rip It Up 8. Jet Black (The Drifters) 9. Living Doll 10. C’mon Everybody 11. Steady With You 12. Ready Teddy 13. Apron Strings 14. Never Mind 15. Danny 16. Don’t Bug Me Baby 17. I’m In Love Again 18. Gee Whiz, It’s You 19. You’re Just The One To Do It 20. Apache (The Shadows) 21. What’d I Say 22. Where Is My Heart? 23. Quatermassters Stores (The Shadows) 24. Please Don’t Tease 25. Hang Up My Rock’n’roll Shoes 26. Move It! 27. My Babe 28. Baby I Don’t Care 29. High Class Baby 30. Baby I Don’t Care 31. Down The Line 32. Danny 33. Summertime Blues 34. Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On
CD2: Live Music, Introductions And Interviews From Saturday Club 1958-1960 1. Saturday Jump (Humphrey Lyttelton & His Band). Brian Matthew Introduces Saturday Club 13th April 2. C’mon Everybody 3. Cliff Reads A Request 4. Steady With You 5. Brian Matthew Introduction 6. Ready Teddy 7. Cliff Reads A Request 8. Apron Strings 9. Brian Matthew Introduction 10. Never Mind 11. Cliff Introduction 12. Danny 13. Brian Matthew Introduction 14. Don’t Bug Me Baby 15. Saturday Jump (Humphrey Lyttelton & His Band) - Brian Matthew: Programme Ending 16. Saturday Jump (Humphrey Lyttelton & His Band) - Brian Matthew Introduces Saturday Club 20th June 1959 17. Mean Streak 18. Cliff Introduction 19. Dream Lover 20. Brian Matthew Reads A Request 21. I’m In Love Again 22. Cliff Introduces The Drifters And A Request 23. Driftin’ (The Drifters) 24. Brian Matthew Reads A Request 25. Rip It Up 26. Cliff Reads A Request & Introduces The Drifters 27. Jet Black (The Drifters) 28. Brian Matthew Talks About Jet Harris 29. Brian Matthew Reads Requests 30. Living Doll 31. Saturday Jump (Humphrey Lyttelton & His Band) - Brian Matthew: Programme Ending 32. Time Signal, Cliff & Jim Dale Introduce Saturday Club In London & Saturday Jump (Humphrey Lyttelton & His Band ) 33. Dynamite! 34. Cliff & Jim Dale Introduction 35. I’m In Love Again 36. Guitar Boogie (The Drifters) 37. Time Signal & Brian Matthew Introduces Saturday Club 6th August 1960 & Saturday Jump (Humphrey Lyttelton & His Band) 38. Gee Whiz, It’s You 39. Brian Matthew Introduction 40. You’re just the one to do it 41. Cliff Introduces The Shadows And Reads Requests 42. Apache (The Shadows) 43. Brian Matthew & Cliff Introduction & Request 44. What’d I Say 45. Cliff Reads A Request 46. Where Is My Heart? 47. Brian Matthew & Cliff Discuss Photographs And Requests For The Shadows 48. Quatermassters Stores (The Shadows) 49. Brian Matthew Introduction & Cliff Reads Requests 50. Please Don’t Tease 51. Brian Matthew Reads Request, And Programme Ending Saturday Jump (Humphrey Lyttelton & His Band) 52. Hang Up My Rock’n’roll Shoes |
