[6] In 1959, after the neck of his Framus was terminally damaged in a dressing room accident, Harris was presented by the importers with a Fender Precision Bass, one of the first to come to Britain from the United States.

In Mike Read's book, The Story of the Shadows, Harris attributed the start of his depression and related alcohol addiction to discovering that Cliff Richard had had an affair with his wife Carol Costa (whom he had married in 1959) after they were separated.

[7] After leaving the Shadows, he signed a contract with Decca and released solo instrumental and vocal work with some success, "Besame Mucho" and "The Man with the Golden Arm" featuring a Fender VI six-string bass guitar.

[4] Then, as part of a duo with former Shadows drummer Tony Meehan, he topped the UK Singles Chart for three weeks in early 1963 with a cover of Jerry Lordan's "Diamonds".

In the film, "Jet and the Jetblacks" played "Man From Nowhere", whilst the duo performed "(Doin' the) Hully Gully", a vocal track released as the b-side of their hit "Scarlett O'Hara".

[9] There were several court appearances involving drunkenness and violent behaviour[4] before the partnership with Meehan came to an abrupt end in September 1963 when a car crash on what was then the A44 (now the B4084) near Evesham, Worcestershire, (in which his girlfriend, singer Billie Davis,[10] was also injured), meant that this success did not last long.

For many years, Harris made a point in his stage shows of saying how long it had been since he quit drinking, winning applause from audiences who knew how it had wrecked his career in the 1960s.

He recorded continuously from the late 1980s with a variety of collaborators, including Tangent, Alan Jones (also an ex-Shadows bassist), Bobby Graham and the Local Heroes.

The Rapiers performed as his 'Shadows', and he had a special guest star in his former girlfriend Billie Davis, who had rescued him when the pair were in a road crash in late 1963 that effectively ended his career.

This culminated in an evening at the London Palladium, with other guests including Wilde's daughters Kim and Roxanne, Justin Hayward of The Moody Blues and original Wildcats members Big Jim Sullivan, Brian "Licorice" Locking and Brian Bennett, who joined Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch of The Shadows on stage with Wilde and the current Wildcats (Neville Marten and Eddie Allen on guitar, Roger Newell bass, and Bryan Fitzpatrick, drums).

However, regular tour dates and studio recordings with the Shadowers, Brian "Licorice" Locking and Alan Jones, though discussed, never materialised due to Harris' poor health.

Brian "Licorice" Locking could not attend but a few days earlier had made a live recording of a dedicated harmonica performance of Andrea Bocelli's "The Prayer", which was played.