Customer Reviews

Shake

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The original Shadows of Knight were an excellent mid-60's hard garage group, influenced by The Stones, Yardbirds, and Them, (from whom they derived their biggest hit, "Gloria"). By the time of this 1969 album, the original group had broken up, and lead singer Jim Sohns assembled a new, heavy blues-rock outfit with excellent lead guitarist Woody Woodruff. The album has kind of a shizophrenic feel, as it alternates between bubblegum-ish pop and heavy guitar freak-outs (in the same song in the case of "Times & Places"). There is some substandard material here, but some great tracks, such as "Uncle Wiggley's Airship" the infectious hit single "Shake" and an amazing feedback-drenched cover of Buffalo Springfield's "Bluebird." Worthwhile if you're a fan of 60's garage/psych and/or early hard rock/metal.

Robert Schell's review above is pretty dead on. I just wanted to add that
"I Want to Make You All Mine" is a direct rip of Richard & the Young Lions' "Open Up Your Door."

Exact same title (even cover) as the Shadows Of Knight's third lp titled 'Super K Kollection' (see my review), originally released in 1969. Only diiference is this pressing tags on four extra tunes. I guess it's pretty much aimed toward the completists and die-hard fans.

I read somewhere that the Shadows of Knight was a band much like the Standells. This made me buy this album, and to a certain degree I do see similarites between these two 1960's garage bands.

Personally I, by far, prefer the Standells, whose more melodic, tighter and less improvised style suits my taste better. To my ears the Shadows of Knight sound more like a West Coast act from 1967-70.

My favourite tracks are "Follow" ( the closest they come to sounding like the Standells ) and the 3 bonus-tracks "My Fire Department Needs a Fireman", "Shake" and "Run Run Billy Porter"