![]() ![]() Oldfield approached labels including EMI and CBS, but each rejected him, believing the piece was unmarketable without vocals. Oldfield spent much of 1972 working with his old bandmates from the Whole World on their solo projects while trying to find a record label interested in his demos. I liked them very much and was a little nonplussed when Mike strung them all together." After the album was released, Newman said he preferred the demo versions: "They were complete melodies in themselves – with intros and fade-outs or ends. Newman and Heyworth made a copy of the demos onto 4-track tape, and promised Oldfield that they would speak to Branson and his business partner Simon Draper about them. Oldfield asked Newman to listen to his demos, but they were in his Tottenham flat, so one of Louis' roadies drove Oldfield to London and back to retrieve them. Oldfield was shy and socially awkward, but struck up a friendship with the producers after they heard his guitar playing. ![]() The studio was being constructed in the former squash court of an old manor house in Shipton-on-Cherwell, Oxfordshire, which had recently been bought by the young entrepreneur Richard Branson and which was being turned into a residential recording facility run by his music production team of Tom Newman and Simon Heyworth. Late in 1971, Oldfield joined the band of Arthur Louis, who were recording demos at the Manor Studio. The Manor Studio, where the album was recorded ![]() He was also influenced by classical music, and by A Rainbow in Curved Air (1969) by the experimental composer Terry Riley, on which Riley played all the instruments himself and used tape loops and overdubs to build up a long, repetitive piece of music. Oldfield was inspired to write a long instrumental after hearing Septober Energy (1971), the only album by Centipede. The demos comprised three shorter melodies (early versions of what would become the sections "Peace", "Bagpipe Guitars", and "Caveman" on Tubular Bells 2003), and a longer piece he had provisionally titled "Opus One". ![]() In his flat in Tottenham in north London, Oldfield recorded demos of four tracks he had been composing in his head for some years, using the tape recorder, his guitar and bass, some toy percussion instruments, and a Farfisa organ borrowed from the Whole World keyboardist David Bedford. Oldfield blocked off the erase head of the tape machine, which allowed him to record onto one track, bounce the recording onto the second, and record a new instrument onto the first track, thus overdubbing his playing one instrument at a time, and effectively making multitrack recordings. The Whole World broke up in mid-1971 and Ayers lent Oldfield a two-track Bang & Olufsen Beocord 1⁄ 4" tape recorder. When the group did not have a recording session booked in the morning, Oldfield would arrive early and experiment with the different instruments, including pianos, harpischords, a Mellotron and various orchestral percussion instruments, and learned to play each of them. The Whole World recorded their album Shooting at the Moon (1970) at Abbey Road Studios over several months in 1970, when Oldfield was 17. Oldfield learned to play the guitar at an early age, and as a teenager he became the bass player for the Whole World, a band put together by Kevin Ayers formerly of Soft Machine. In 2010, Tubular Bells was one of ten classic album covers from British artists commemorated on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail. Its contribution to British music was recognised when Oldfield played extracts during the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London. A remastered edition was released in 2009. It was followed by the albums Tubular Bells II (1992), Tubular Bells III (1998), The Millennium Bell (1999), and a re-recorded version, Tubular Bells 2003, for its 30th anniversary. It has sold more than 2.7 million copies in the UK and an estimated 15 million copies worldwide.Īn orchestral version produced by David Bedford was released in 1975 as The Orchestral Tubular Bells. It reached number three on the US Billboard 200, and number one in Canada and Australia. It stayed in the top ten of the UK Albums Chart for one year from March 1974, during which it reached number one for one week. This led to a surge in sales which increased Oldfield's profile and played an important part in the growth of the Virgin Group. Tubular Bells initially sold slowly, but gained worldwide attention in December 1973 when its opening theme was used for the soundtrack to the horror film The Exorcist. Oldfield, who was 19 years old when it was recorded, played almost all the instruments. It comprises two mostly instrumental tracks. Tubular Bells is the debut studio album by the British musician Mike Oldfield, released on as the first album on Virgin Records. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |