JET HARRIS was believed to be the first person in Britain to own an electric bass guitar – and he was certainly the first to play one in a band here.As a member of Cliff Richard’s then backing group The Shadows at their height in the early Sixties, he was for a while one of the best known pop stars in the country.
However he left following his first wife’s relationship with Cliff – and though he went on to enjoy some success as a solo artist and as part of a duo with former Shadows drummer Tony Meehan, his career went downhill soon afterwards.
Born Terence Harris in Kingsbury, north London, he earned his nickname thanks to his speed as a runner. He left school to work as an apprentice welder making milk churns.
Harris played in several bands before joining Cliff Richard’s backing group The Drifters in 1959. They later changed their name to The Shadows at Harris’s suggestion.
Harris blamed the start of his problems with alcohol and depression on his wife Carol’s relationship with Sir Cliff. She is the only woman known to have slept with the singer – a fling Sir Cliff admitted in his autobiography, My Life, My Way.
Harris later recalled: “I pretty much knew something was going on between him and my wife but I went on stage every night and stood there behind the man, looking at the back of his head, backing him up.”
Between 1959 and 1962 The Shadows were the biggest band in the country as rock ’n’ roll pioneers with hits including Apache.
Harris and Meehan left the band in 1962 and the following year their single Diamonds displaced The Shadows’ Dance On! at the top of the charts. One of the session guitarists on Diamonds was a young Jimmy Page, later of Led Zeppelin.
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