Shadows of Knight, The

Congratulations to The Shadows Of Night, who had their take on the Van Morrison penned “Gloria” inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame’s singles category! We’re so proud of them and honored to have them in our catalog. This take added more guts to rock helping to birth punk and helped young punks add another word to their list of spelling accomplishments.

Originally forming as The Shadows in 1964, this band of Chicago high schoolers became The Shadows of Knight after learning of the great UK band already named the Shadows. It was an interesting coincidence, as all four band members, then attending Prospect High School ("Home of the Knights!"), were major British invasion fans. While the English bands were busy crafting their interpretation of American blues, the Shadows of Knight, in their own words, "re-added a Chicago touch" to the Brit sound. The resulting music, dubbed "blues-punk," was a high-energy mix of Chess and Cheshire, Chicago meets London in a back alley garage. Lead singer Jim Sohns could snarl like Howlin' Wolf and move like Mick Jagger, a wicked combination guaranteed to generate pubescent pandemonium. It was clear that this was a band that was going places.

For much of 1965, the place they went was The Cellar, a teen club in nearby Arlington Heights. They served as the venue's house band for a six-month run, drawing hundreds of teenage fans every weekend. It was at one of these shows that Dunwich record executives saw the band performing a potent cover of Them's "Gloria" and subsequently offered the band a recording contract. To circumvent any potential AM radio censorship, the band slightly altered Van Morrison's original lyric, "She comes to my room" to "She called out my name." This minor change allowed the song to secure airplay on Chicago's AM powerhouse WLS, where it quickly hit the #1 spot and rapidly spread to other stations in the region. Ultimately, the single sold over a million copies and became an enduring garage classic.

Fortunately, their club apprenticeship served them well when they began their recording career. This was a band used to playing for intense live audiences where they received instant feedback from the dance floor. They knew what it took to move and groove a crowd and that skill transferred seamlessly in the studio. They evolved quickly, expanding beyond their blues-punk origins to incorporate raga-rock, folk-rock and other sounds into their own unique style. Sundazed has scoured the vaults to make these groundbreaking recordings available again. Sourced from the original analog tapes, It's 100% pure aural excitement!