We had a great response to our survey of members and we will post some thoughts on that soon. In the meantime the winner of the i-Tab (thanks to the guys again) is Charles Campbell and we took the opportunity to ask him the regular questions from our occasional members feature post.

The i-Tab

Charles in his own words:

I’ve been playing since the 60′s since I heard and fell in love with ‘The Shadows’. Maybe not everyone’s cup of tea but one has to acknowledge the immense influence they had on the so many great musicians throughout the world. They were also responsible for introducing countless thousands of musicians, myself included, to that fabulous ‘Twang’ of the Fender Stratocaster!

Love them or hate them, one thing you can’t deny, 50 years on and they’re still twanging away on their Strats. I moved over to Ireland with my family in ’98 and being a bit OTT about the Shads I hunted, fruitlessly, for a club to join and finding none, I decided to start one.

Since starting the club, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting all of my heroes, attending Bruce Welch’s annual Shadowmania and for two hi-lites in my life, we had Jet Harris over to our Club in January 09 where we backed him while he played all his hits, and then being asked to play in Killarney at the after-party at the first concert of the Cliff and the Shadows current world tour.

Jet Harris & Charles Campbell

1) What is the favorite guitar that you own and what is it about that guitar that makes it special?

I have two Fender Strats, Two Burns Marvins, a Fender PBass and a Tanglewood Jumbo. Since the early 60s I have owned an Eko, Hofner, Fender Esprite, a gold Gibson Les Paul and an original ’64 Burns Marvin and always ended up preferring Fender Strats. These, like all of us I guess, are some of the guitars I remember owning, swapping, selling or losing through theft like my precious 64 Burns, (Wish this site was round then in the 70s).
I have to say that the best guitar I have ever owned is my current 1982 Fender Stratocaster. At the time in 1982 I owned the Esprite and my daughters boyfriend, at the time had just been given this beautiful Strat as a birthday gift from his family. When he came round to show me, it was love at first site, touch, smell, the works! The great thing was, being a young player he preferred the ‘Les Paul’ look of my Esprite and the deal was done!!
This Fender, to me, is an amazing guitar. Whoever plays it says the same about it, the action and intonation are perfect. The balance in sound has matured with age and the very light V shaped neck is slim and beautiful to play. Yes, almost thirty years, irreplaceable

2) What’s your dream guitar?

A few years ago I walked into my favourite music store, at the time, and there was this powder blue relic Strat. Whoever did the crafting was surely in his element with this one! It wasn’t like the modern so called ‘road worn’ hacked out guitars of today. This looked, felt and sounded like I was back in 1960!!
Apart from the real thing, I would have to say that that was my dream guitar.
I started putting money away and making regular trips to the store to give it a bash. One day I went in and it was no longer there. The dream continues.

3) When you pick up a strange guitar, for example someone else’s or in a shop what’s the first thing you play to check out if you like or not?

I am a self confessed Shadows freak! This does not mean I don’t play anything else. I love American Country Rock and played in a really good Garth Brooks tribute called Rodeo, a few Elvis tributes here in Ireland and my longest running band, a Van Morrison tribute called Moondance which lasted all of eight years. But when I pick up another guitar the first riff I play is mostly always the intro of Jimi’s ‘The Wind Cried Mary’! I don’t ever gig this song but I love the sound of that song and it just sounds right on a good Strat.

Thanks to Charles for those answers and to all of you who took the time to answer the survey.

keith