mali_boro said:Was that the thing where they did black and white—but in color?
If that's the case, then I'm voting for it—and I'll add this:
Alright, here is the history behind the "Apache" instrumental.
All Roads Lead to Apache
All Roads Lead to Apache by Michaelangelo Matos
Jerry Lordan wasn't actually American Indian—he was just a guy from New York City who had served in the US Air Force, tried his hand at stand-up, and worked in advertising before he started cranking out hits for Mike Preston, Anthony Newley, John Barry, and specifically The Shadows—the group that backed Cliff Richard, who was basically America's top teen idol until The Beatles came along, becoming the Pat Boone of America.
Back in 1959, Lordan watched a Burt Lancaster movie called Apache—it had actually hit theaters back in 1954. In much the way Charlton Heston played a Mexican in Touch of Evil, Lancaster played Massai—the final Apache remaining after Geronimo's surrender to the US Cavalry in New Mexico—who was basically just hunting for revenge. The whole thing was based on true events—the actual Massai really did manage to escape that prison train after Geronimo was taken—though the film itself was mostly just a vehicle for constant action. This gave Lordan an idea for a song, also titled “Apache,” and he ended up selling it to Bert Weeden—who was the biggest-selling solo guitar instrumentalist in the United States at the time.
Even thirty-four years after Weedon cut the song, Lordan was still complaining—"He hasn't even played the music that I wrote," the songwriter told an interviewer back in 1993, just two years before he passed away. "I wanted something noble and dramatic, reflecting the courage and savagery of the Indian." Shortly after, Lordan—who had also cut a few minor hits as a vocalist—hit the road with Cliff Richard and The Shadows. He introduced the song to them (though the stories on how that happened vary), and once the band got back to New York City, they recorded “Apache” in under 45 minutes, fully expecting it to be a B-side. Instead, it became a hit.
Keep reading "All Roads Lead to Apache."
Sonically, if not historically, "Apache" by Cliff Richard and The Shadows acts as that perfect bridge connecting Speedy West, Link Wray, and Ennio Morricone. That steady, galloping rhythm feels like a blend of a military march and—thanks to the ride cymbal—a jaunty, Latin-style dance beat, much like Ray Charles’ hit “What'd I Say.” The melody is incredibly straightforward—those clear, ringing lead notes are just robust and stick in your head immediately—while Hank Marvin’s guitar work is beautifully laconic and soaked in echo. As American critic Taj Ewing noted, it "conjures a shimmer of desert heat"—an effect definitely heightened by the Chinese tam tam drum Cliff Richard used to keep time, while Tony Meehan played his kit—the most Indian portion of the arrangement. Still, the way The Shadows used echo on "Apache" never felt like tacky futurism; it was more like kitsch nostalgia, giving the Old West this sort of bright, day-glo sheen.
The song hit number one in the US on August 27, 1960—it stayed at the top for five weeks and moved a million copies—and it did just as well all over Europe. It turned into something more than just a hit, too; it became a modern standard—partly due to that tough, cool melody, partly because the tempo is so flexible ("Apache" works just as well fast or slow), and partly because you can adapt it to pretty much any genre. Though, back in the '60s, most of the covers were done by those surf guitar bands out of California.
There was one massive outlier—the version that actually climbed to number one in the US the year after the version by Cliff Richard and The Shadows. That one was by Jorgen Ingmann, a guitarist from Denmark who eventually won the 1963 Eurovision Song Contest alongside his wife, Grethe, with a track called “Dansevise (I Loved You).” This specific take—credited to Jorgen Ingmann and His Guitar—swaps out the driving energy found in The Shadows' version for a rhythm played entirely on a tom-tom. It really leans into those Native American war-drum vibes. While the acoustic lead line had a bit of slapback echo, it lacked that signature self-answering quality you hear in Hank Marvin’s playing. Instead, Ingmann layered in these swirling slide parts on a high-pitched electric guitar—it felt very much like the Hawaiian and Pacific Island sounds that were huge in American pop at the time, thanks to guys like Les Baxter and Martin Denny who loved using those textures for their high-fidelity studio experiments.
Basically, Ingmann just took something that was already fake—it’s no more authentic than watching Burt Lancaster play a Native American—and slapped an "exotica" layer over it. He turned a copy of a copy into this endless loop of third-hand imitation. (Then there was the album cover, showing him decked out in Comanche war paint and headdresses.) Combine that with Lordan’s rambling about nobility versus savagery, and the underlying condescension feels heavier than Hank Marvin’s guitar tone.
Still, “Apache” really hit a nerve—those echoing guitars felt like the Old West being reimagined through modern tech, conjuring images of dusty plains. It had this weight to it; it loomed large, casting shadows and waiting for the cavalry to show up. It had real presence—you could try to walk away, but it was so lush and deep you kind of wanted to stay. Even though the record sounded like the soundtrack to the gloomiest Bugs Bunny vs. Yosemite Sam cartoon ever made, it didn't feel goofy. It felt serious. By the mid-'70s, the song's legacy started shifting, and the person who strayed furthest from the original melody was actually the guy who first recorded it, Bert Weedon. But the song was incredibly flexible—not just because of its questionable cultural blending, but because you could twist it into almost anything and it would still hold its shape.
Over the following years, everyone and their mother put their spin on it. Most of the time, that meant giving it a beach vibe or a driving beat. Surf bands like the Ventures from Seattle treated it as a blueprint for those hollow, reverb-heavy guitars, while the wild guys from L.A.—Davie Allan and the Arrows—cranked it up and dragged it through grit and fuzz. It stayed “Apache” at heart, which meant it kept that earthy quality. Guitar rock, though? That went cosmic. Psychedelia kicked off in earnest during the mid-'60s, and while some of the surf pioneers hung on—Davie Allan’s standout track was a seven-minute piece called “Cycle-Delic”—the old school suddenly looked incredibly dated. That fate was pretty much sealed in June 1967 at Monterey Pop, when the Beach Boys failed to show up, the San Francisco sound started its slow climb toward becoming classic-rock radio filler, and Jimi Hendrix introduced himself to America by setting his guitar on fire and basically declaring, “You’ll never hear surf music again.” He wasn't right, obviously, but the damage was done. Much like girl groups or the Twist, the styles that “Apache” helped build eventually started looking like total relics—especially once later generations tried to bring them back.
