John Rostill

John Rostill (born John Henry Rostill, 16 June 1942, Kings Norton, Birmingham, England – died 26 November 1973) was a bass guitarist and composer, recruited by The Shadows to replace Brian Locking.

He worked with several artists before joining The Shadows, including The Interns, The Flintstones? and a stint in the backing group of Zoot Money.

Stylistically, John Rostill had an approach somewhere between his two predecessors, combining the solidity of Brian Locking, and the adventurousness of Jet Harris. Many of his basslines were heavily syncopated and he developed a range of new bass guitar sounds during his time with the group, a longer period than Harris and Locking put together. To many players, John was ahead of his time in that he was the first to try playing bass as a harmony line to the lead and included double stopping in his technique. He needed the clarity of tone produced by the combination of the Burns bass and his Vox amp to stop this technique from sounding 'muddy'. Unusually, for that time, John played bass finger style rather than with a [plectrum] , though he did use a plectrum for many of the faster numbers to retain the clarity of the notes. These days, finger picking is the accepted style of playing a bass guitar.

After The Shadows break up at the end of the 1960s, Rostill toured with Tom Jones. Although he was not involved in the Marvin, Welch & Farrar project (he was with Tom Jones at the time - 1970-72), he would have been a part of subsequent Shadows projects had he not died in 1973, when he was electrocuted in his home recording studio.

Rostill was a prolific songwriter, contributing to the Shadows' output from the start (both as a solo composer and as part of the mid-sixties "Marvin/Welch/Bennett/Rostill" team), and later going on to write for other artists such as Olivia Newton-John.

As a Shadow, Rostill played a prototype Burns "Shadows" bass guitar which differed from the production model that followed. A replica of his bass has been produced by Burns London in late 2006.