The original British guitar hero tells us of meeting the young singer who would change his life. By Paul Balmer

Born Brian Robson Rankin in Newcastle in 1941, the future Shadows lead guitarist was nicknamed ‘Hank’ as there were simply too many kids called ‘Brian’ in his class at school. As for ‘Marvin’, that came from one Marvin Rainwater who had a 1958 hit, Whole Lotta Woman. Wielding the first Strat in Britain, Hank became iconic from 1960 onwards as the first home-grown ‘guitar hero’, exploiting the then-revolutionary effects of reverb and delay. With that tasteful twang he made almost every teenage boy in the land seize a tennis racquet and pose in front of the mirror – and along the way he inspired future greats like Jeff Beck, George Harrison and Mark Knopfler to seek Strats of their own.

More than any other Shadow, Hank has kept the instrumental flame alive with a constant stream of albums, culminating in 2017’s Without A Word. Though he turned down an Order of the British Empire in 2004 for personal reasons, he does have the priceless award of having his name enshrined in the English language – or, at least, in the Cockney lingo, where “I’m Hank Marvin” translates as “I’m starvin’”. It’s something that appeals to Hank’s vivid sense of humour.

Tell us about your start in music…

When I was about 13-ish I started listening to music on the BBC Light Programme. It was the end of the big band era: you’d hear Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, you’d also get Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Dicky Valentine, the big American singers, Frankie Vaughan. Then there was a half-hour jazz programme that used to play some New Orleans stuff, a bit of folk blues, Big Bill Broonzy, Leadbelly, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, that sort of stuff… and I thought “Wow, I love that!” Harmonica, bluesy guitar…

I eventually bought a couple of records – George Lewis on the clarinet and [cornettist] Muggsy Spanier from Chicago… what a great name that is!

I had ‘done piano’ for two and a half years so I know the difference between a crotchet and a quaver, but listening to those records made me want to play clarinet. The problem was, I didn’t have any money to buy one! And if I did buy one I would not have been able to afford lessons, so it was a bit of a dream too much.

But then skiffle came along. The Vipers, Chas McDevitt, Lonnie Donegan – that first Lonnie album was a cracker, drawing a lot from Leadbelly and other people. I could relate to that very much. Our music teacher at school, James Moody, said he had a banjo and I asked if he wanted to sell it to me. He said he wanted two pounds and 10 shillings for it, so I paid him half a crown down and half a crown every week. It was a Windsor ‘zither’ banjo – and I still have it right here in my studio in Perth!

I learned a few chord shapes and sequences and got a gig with a local jazz band. One of them had a ‘fake book’ so I copied that, and I was also singing jazz vocals. I found it very exciting, so I formed a group, The Crescent City Skiffle Group: tea chest bass, washboard, me on banjo, another guy on guitar and piano. I borrowed his guitar from time to time and started doubling on banjo and guitar. After a while I realised that the guitar was the way to go – it was much more versatile. So I got my first guitar when I was 16.

Can you tell us about Bruce Welch asking you to join The Railroaders?

I arrived at a new school in 1957. There was a small group of boys in a circle and I thought, “What’s going on here?” Poking up above their heads was the headstock of a guitar and I went, “Wow, a guitar!” I shot over there, and it was Bruce Welch. I’d seen him around but I didn’t actually know him. Bruce had this guitar, it was a National or a Dobro steel-bodied guitar… I’d never seen anything like it. We got into conversation. Bruce had heard I played and he said, “We need another guitar player, someone who plays solos and sings harmonies and things, do you want to come along?”

Back with the Crescent City Group, we used to hawk ourselves around on a Friday or Saturday evening round youth clubs. I used to say, “Look, I have a skiffle group, would you like us to come and play for you?” and they’d go, “Yeah!” We’d go in and all the kids would dance around and think it was great and they’d give us a cup of tea and a biscuit, and we thought it was wonderful… but with Bruce’s band, we used to do gigs and get paid for it!

You were 16 and won a local talent contest… what happened next?

For the final, which was at the London Walthamstow Granada, we were apparently tipped as the favourites! Bruce and I decided that whatever happened, we were going to stay: win or lose, we knew that if we wanted to ‘make it’ then everything was in London. Coincidentally, that talent contest was where we met Brian Bennett for the first time. He was with a band called Earl Hollis & The Velvets or something like that, and they sang Maybe Baby, the Crickets song. What knocked us out was the fact that Brian was doing all the fills and it sounded just like the record – it was amazing.

Tell us about the 2i’s coffee bar and being talent-spotted there…

We congregated in and around the 2i’s because we’d heard that Tommy Steele had been discovered there. We ended up playing about five nights a week, Bruce and I and a couple of drummers, bass players, singers… a guy called Rick Richards, a country singer and guitarist. We’d back them up, and then Bruce and I would sing some rock’n’roll songs. Tony Sheridan was keen to learn lead guitar. I’d show him some stuff, and he got quite good.

Did you meet Cliff through the 2i’s?

In a sense, yes. I had a cold and was back in the bedsit and Bruce wasn’t playing that night, he was operating the orange drink machine downstairs. He came back and said, “Really good band on tonight, really liked the singer, bit like Elvis, you know…” and he couldn’t remember his name!

Not Harry Webb, by any chance?

No, he was under the name Cliff by this time. Then we heard Move It on the jukebox and saw some photos and Bruce said, “That’s the guy I heard singing!” A couple of weeks later I was hanging around the 2i’s with that country singer, Rick Richards, and Cliff’s first manager. I said, “Hi, what are you doing here?” and he said that Cliff needed a lead guitarist and that he’d come to hear Tony Sheridan. So Rick said, “Why do you want to hear Tony? You should hear this kid… he taught Tony how to play all the solos!” I was a bit embarrassed, but we did a few rock’n’roll songs and John said, “That’s great, would you like the gig?’’ I said, “Yeah!’’ I then asked if he needed a rhythm guitarist, and John said yes, so I recommended Bruce – worst decision I ever made [laughs].

So we met Cliff a couple of days later, said hello, sneered at each other a bit in typical rock’n’roll style, and then got into the back of a green bus and rode off to Cheshunt. Cliff was 17 by then, we were 16, all teenage boys… and by the time we got to his parents’ council house we were joking and laughing. He showed us the numbers and we had Terry Smart his old school mate on drums and Ian Samwell, who had written Move It, on bass. Cliff was really happy and said, “Great, fabulous, see you tomorrow on the bus!”

I had this black Vega guitar that [Railroaders guitarist] Eddie Silver had lent me, plus a tiny little amp, no bigger than a cornflake packet, no reverb or anything. It was a bit of a nerve-wracking experience. However, the first night was quite remarkable. It was Hanley Victoria Hall, the audience were there to see Cliff – he’d done two Oh Boy! shows by then and the record was rocketing through the charts. The screaming when his name was mentioned was nuts, the kids outside the stage door were crazy – “Cliff, CLIFF, we want Cliff” – and we thought, wow, this kid’s got something.

How did The Drifters become Cliff’s actual recording band?

Move It had been Ernie Shear, the session guitarist, working with Norrie Paramor. I really liked what he did, but then when Cliff did High Class Baby he said, “Norrie, I really want Hank to try the lead guitar on some of these things”. Norrie suggested we do one version with Ernie and one version with me. Cliff came up to me after and said, “I sang much better on the one where you played lead”. And once we’d done that session, Norrie just used us.

Living Doll famously credited Cliff Richard and The Drifters, but that caused you problems…

The Drifters were an American vocal group, and they brought in a court injunction to stop the name being used. A lot of new names came up, including The 4 Jets. But then Jet Harris and myself took our Lambretta scooters up to the Ruislip Lido, having some time off, and Jet said, “Hey, what about The Shadows? It’s a kinda moody-sounding name, and also symbolic… behind Cliff, in the shadows…” We drove back into town and told Cliff and Bruce and they all loved it. We spoke to Norrie and he liked it as well, so we changed from The Drifters to The Shadows.

Tell us about first hearing Apache demonstrated on the ukulele…

We’d just come back from the USA and then we went on tour again in the UK. One of the support acts for Cliff was a guy called Jerry Lordan, who’d had a couple of small hits produced by George Martin – I’ll Be Single and Who Could Be Bluer. Gerry was really a writer and he said, “Look, I really like the way you guys sound. Are you recording any more stuff? Would you be interested in an instrumental? I’ve got a tune and you’d do it great,” and he got out his ukulele and sang the tune to Apache to myself and Jet Harris. We grabbed Bruce and Tony and said, “Come and listen to this, it’s great”. They loved it and so Jerry showed us the chords. I used to have to come up with intros and endings, so I did that, and everyone said, “Oh, I like that, quite sort of ominous”. Anyway we recorded it with Cliff playing the Chinese tom-tom at the beginning.

One funny thing; Norrie wanted to release the other side, Quartermaster’s Stores, and we almost pleaded with him to use Apache instead. So he said he’d play it to his daughters – who’d originally chosen Move It over the other side – and a few other people. He came back to us and said, “Well, the general consensus, apart from this is the A-side, is that this is also a hit! I think you’d better get yourselves a manager, ’cos the more I listen to it, the more I think they’re right!”

Apache went to #1 in July 1960, the first of five UK #1’s and 31 chart successes. Do you have a favourite from The Shadows’ string of hits?

I find it very difficult to choose one particular track. I love Wonderful Land, it’s just such a majestic melody. Apache, obviously, will always have a great place in my heart. Atlantis is also good, I love the Theme From The Deer Hunter, Kon-Tiki, Foot Tapper, Dance On, Argentina… fantastic!

More than any of the other Shadows, you’ve kept the spirit of the instrumental album going. Why have you put so much energy into that?

There’s the joy of playing and having the challenge of interpreting tunes. I want to put as much expression into the piece as possible. I also enjoy spontaneous things that happen in the studio, things that make you go, “Wow, that felt a bit special”… the interpretation, a certain phrase, the way I played a verse or part of a solo, and I think that’s part of our subconscious where things are just going on and you know nothing about them. These, I think, are the joyful things about making music.

  • Paul Balmer is the author of Haynes’ Fender Stratocaster Manual, with a foreword by Hank Marvin himself
  • You can find more ‘Shadows’ stories on Paul Balmer’s website – www.musiconearth.co.uk as part of his series of GuitarStory.