Jet Harris

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Jet Harris bigraphy, stories - English musician

Jet Harris : biography

6 July 1939 – 18 March 2011 (aged 71)

Terence Harris MBE (6 July 1939 – 18 March 2011), known as Jet 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.

Personal life and death

Harris had 5 sons and 1 daughter. He was a heavy smoker 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.

In 2012 the UK Heritage Foundation erected a blue plaque in his memory at the Kingswood Centre, Honeypot Lane, Kingsbury, on the site of the former Willesden Maternity Hospital where he was born. Heritage Foundation. Retrieved 15 June 2013.

Early life and career with the Shadows

Harris, the only child of Bill and Winifred Harris, was born Terence Harris at Honeypot Lane, Kingsbury, North London, England. His prowess as a sprinter at Dudden Hill secondary modern school earned him the nickname Jet.

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. He subsequently was given by Cliff Richard the first Fender Bass (sunburst) guitar in the UK in 1960 about a year after band-mate Hank Marvin had received his first red Fender Stratocaster guitar. Both instruments were eventually replaced with matching versions, used in the film The Young Ones in which 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, 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.

In 1962, he left the Shadows following disagreements (documented in The Story of The Shadows, written by the group with Mike Read). He had been forced to resign (i.e. a constructive dismissal) after Bruce Welch made an offhand 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.

Discography

Singles

  • "Besame Mucho" (solo) b/w "Chills And Fever" – May 1962 (Decca F11466) UK No. 22
  • "Main Title Theme (from The Man With the Golden Arm)" (solo) b/w "Some People" – August 1962 (Decca F11488) UK No. 12
  • "Diamonds" b/w "Footstomp" (with Tony Meehan) – January 1963 (Decca F11563) UK No. 1
  • "Scarlett O’Hara" b/w "(Doing the) Hully Gully" (with Tony Meehan) – April 1963 (Decca F11644) UK No. 2
  • "Applejack" b/w "The Tall Texan" (with Tony Meehan) – September 1963 (Decca F11710) UK No. 4
  • "Theme For a Fallen Idol" b/w "Guitar Man"
  • "Big Bad Bass" b/w "Rifka" [Decca Records, 1964]
  • "Diamonds" / "Big Bad Bass From Texas"
  • "My Lady" / "You Don’t Live Twice" – 1967 (Fontana TF 849) (arranged by Tony Meehan)
  • "San Antonio" (solo) – 2006
  • "Jet Harris / Wild One (Real Wild Child) – Decca