657 Cliff Richard (1940- ) and the Shadows “Summer Holiday” 1963

“When The Beatles began their own string of number ones in 1963, the media once again whipped up a frenzy, predicting that Cliff and the Shadows would be left behind in their Liverpudlian dust. ‘We knew they’d be enormous because their songs were terrific,’ acknowledges [Bruce] Welch. ‘We’d already been going for five years by then, though, so we were the establishment, the guys in tuxes and silk shirts, the Rat Pack of British pop, and The Beatles overturned all of that. But, at the same time, those mid-Sixties years were the most successful we ever had in terms of the number of hits and the amount of records we were selling.’ In retrospect, although The Beatles revolutionized the music industry, their seven-year recording career now looks like a temporary blip in comparison to Cliff’s unparalleled longevity” (Johnny Black, Music Week, 9/27/2008). 

Cliff Richard and the Shadows “Summer Holiday”