Jet Harris
| Jet Harris | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Terence Harris |
| Born |
6 July 1939 Kingsbury, North London, England |
| Died | 18 March 2011 (aged 71) Winchester, England |
| Occupation(s) | Bassist |
| Instruments | Bass guitar (4 & 6 string), guitar |
| Years active | 1952–2011 |
| Associated acts | The Shadows, Jeff Beck Group, The Vipers Skiffle Group |
| Website | jetharris |
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 from 1958 until April 1962, and had subsequent success as a soloist and as a duo with the drummer Tony Meehan.
Harris, the only child of Bill and Winifred Harris, was born Terence Harris at Honeypot Lane, Kingsbury, North West 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 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.
Other sources state that Cliff Richard gave Jet the first Fender Bass (sunburst) guitar in the UK in 1960, about a year after band-mate Hank Marvin got his first red guitar. Both instruments were eventually replaced with matching versions which were 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.
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