Strawberry Studios, 10cc, and Justin Hayward

Welcome to Rock and Roll Flashback!  I'm Jumpin' John, and in this episode I will share some background information about two of my all time favorite recordings.  I'm talking about two catchy tunes with beautiful melodies that were both recorded at Strawberry Studios in Stockport, England and released as singles in 1975:  "I'm Not in Love" by 10cc and "Blue Guitar" by Justin Hayward.  This is the story about the links among Strawberry Studios, 10cc, and Justin Hayward.  

All podcasts on the Rock and Roll Flashback Podcast are produced by brothers-in-law Bill Price and "Jumpin' John" McDermott. The Podcast Theme Song, "You Essay", was written by John. It was initially recorded by Bill and John on April 1, 2004 with several revisions since then.
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Bill and John welcome your feedback and comments, and they can be emailed to rockandrollflashback@outlook.com.
Thank you for listening to Rock and Roll Flashback Podcasts!
Until next time...
Rock On!

Transcript

Welcome to Rock and Roll Flashback!  I'm Jumpin' John, and in this episode I will share some background information about two of my all time favorite recordings.  I'm talking about two catchy tunes with beautiful melodies that were both recorded at Strawberry Studios and released as singles in 1975:  "I'm Not in Love" by 10cc and "Blue Guitar" by Justin Hayward.  This is the story about the links among Strawberry Studios, 10cc, and Justin Hayward.  

Graham Gouldman,  Kevin Godley, and Lol Creme were childhood friends in the Manchester, England area.  In the early 1960's Godley and Creme were in a band called The Sabres.  Around that time Gouldman was making a name for himself as a songwriter.  Among the songs that Gouldman wrote were such hits as "Heart Full of Soul", "Evil Hearted You" and "For Your Love" for The Yardbirds, "Look Through Any Window" and "Bus Stop" for The Hollies, and "No Milk Today", "East West", and "Listen People" for Herman's Hermits.  In 1964, Gouldman's band, called The Whirlwinds, recorded the Lol Creme composition "Baby Not Like You".  Then The Whirlwinds changed members and their name, becoming The Mockingbirds, with Gouldman as singer and guitarist and Godley as drummer.  

Also in the early 1960's another musician from Greater Manchester, guitarist Eric Stewart, was a member of Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders.  That band had a #1 hit in the US with "The Game of Love".  After Fontana left in 1965, the group became known simply as the Mindbenders.  At the end of that year, with Stewart as their lead vocalist, the band scored a #2 hit in the US with "A Groovy Kind of Love".   In March 1968, Gouldman joined Stewart in the Mindbenders as bass player.  The Mindbenders disbanded in November 1968.  Peter Tattersall, former road manager for Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, had invited Eric Stewart to join him as a recording studio partner in July of 1968.  Together they moved to a larger location in the town of Stockport in the Greater Manchester area of England.  Stewart chose the studio's new name, Strawberry Studios, in honor of his favorite song by the Beatles, "Strawberry Fields Forever".  In 1969 Graham Gouldman joined the pair as an investor in Strawberry Studios.

Meanwhile, back in 1967 Godley and Creme had reunited, calling themselves "The Yellow Bellow Room Boom", and recorded a single.  In 1969, Godley and Creme recorded some basic tracks at Strawberry Studios in Stockport, with Stewart on guitar and Gouldman on bass.   Giorgio Gomelsky, the former manager of the Yardbirds, planned to promote Godley & Creme as a duo, but the idea never got off the ground.  Instead, Stewart, Gouldman, Godley, and Creme worked together writing and performing bubblegum songs for American record producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffry Katz of Super K Productions.  Among the recordings that the four musicians did from this period was "Sausalito", a #86 US hit credited to Ohio Express.  The income from this period of session work allowed the owners to buy more equipment to turn Strawberry into a real studio.  

In addition to having access to their own studio, the talents of the four musicians were impressive.  All four were excellent singers and multi-instrumentalists, who could also produce and engineer their own records.  In 1970 the trio of Stewart, Godley and Creme produced a song, "Neanderthal Man", which was released under the name of Hotlegs.  "Neanderthal Man" became a worldwide hit, reaching #2 in the UK and #22 in the US.  After the trio released another single, "Umbopo", under the name of Doctor Father, Hotlegs embarked on a 5 night British tour supporting the Moody Blues in October 1970, with Gouldman playing bass.  When no further work for Hotlegs ensued, the band members agreed the band was defunct and resumed their session work.

Then in early 1972 singer Neil Sedaka began recording his Solitaire album at Strawberry Studios.  Sedaka used Stewart as recording engineer, and Gouldman, Godley, and Creme as his backing band.  The album's success convinced the four musicians to work on their own material and release it as a new band.  After Apple Records rejected a demo of their first song together, Stewart contacted Jonathon King to listen to another song, Godley and Creme's "Donna".  King signed the band to his UK Records label, and named them 10cc. The single "Donna", released in August 1972, reached #2 on the UK charts.

From 1972 to 1978, 10cc would have five consecutive UK top-ten albums:  Sheet Music in 1974, The Original Soundtrack in 1975, How Dare You! in 1976, Deceptive Bends in 1977,  and Bloody Tourists in 1978.  10cc also had twelve singles reach the UK Top 40, three of which were the chart-toppers:  "Rubber Bullets" in 1973, "I'm Not in Love" in 1975, and "Dreadlock Holiday" in 1978.   

The Original Soundtrack LP was recorded and produced by 10cc at Strawberry Studios in 1974, with Eric Stewart engineering and mixing.  The highlight of the LP was the song "I'm Not in Love", written by Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman.  It would become 10cc's breakthrough worldwide hit.  

Stewart came up with the song idea after his wife asked him why he did not say "I love you" more often to her.  So in the song he chose to say 'I'm not in love with you', while subtly giving all the reasons throughout the song why he could never let go of this relationship.  

Stewart wrote most of the melody and the lyrics on the guitar before taking it to the studio.  Gouldman suggested some different chords for the melody, and also came up with the intro and the bridge section of the song.  Stewart recorded a version with the other three members playing the song in the studio on traditional instruments to a bossa nova beat.  However, Godley and Creme were not impressed with the idea for the track, and it was abandoned.  Sometime later, after hearing members of their studio staff continue to sing the melody around the studio, Stewart persuaded the group to give the song another chance.  Godley felt that the song needed to be radically changed, and he suggested that the band should try to create a new version using just voices.  The other three band members agreed to try Godley's idea and create "a wall of sound" of vocals that would form the focal point of the record.

A basic guide track was recorded first in order to help create the melody using the vocals.  In keeping with Godley's idea to focus on the voices, only a few instruments were used: a Fender Rhodes electric piano played by Stewart, a Gibson 335 electric guitar played by Gouldman for the rhythm melody, and a bass drum sound played by Godley on a Moog synthesizer which Creme had recently purchased and learned how to program.  In order not to overpower the rest of the track, the drum sound that was created was soft like a heartbeat.  Creme played piano during the bridge and the middle eight, and the middle eight is also the only part of the song that contains a bass guitar line, played by Gouldman.  A toy music box was recorded and double tracked out of phase for the middle eight and the outro.

Stewart then spent three weeks recording Gouldman, Godley, and Creme singing "ahhh" 16 times for each note of the chromatic scale.  Thus he built up a choir of 48 voices for each note of the scale.  Then Stewart created loops of about 12 feet in length.  He fed each loop at one end through the tape heads of the stereo recorder in the studio, and at the other end through a capstan roller fixed to the top of a microphone stand.  Having created twelve tape loops, one for each of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, Stewart played each loop through a separate channel of the mixing desk.  The four band members then faded three channels at a time to create chords for the song's melody. 

Once the musical backing had been completed Stewart recorded the lead vocal and Godley and Creme the backing vocals.  Godley felt it was still lacking something, and Creme remembered saying 'be quiet, big boys don't cry' when he was on the piano.  Just then the door to the control room opened and their secretary Kathy Redfern looked in and whispered to Eric Stewart that he had a phone call.  The four band members immediately agreed that Redfern was the ideal person to whisper.  Kathy had to be convinced and coaxed into recording her vocal contribution.  She did it, using the same whispered voice that she had used when entering the control room.

The completed song came in at just over 6 minutes in length.  The end result of their innovative and experimental work was a multi-tracking masterpiece.  "I'm Not in Love" has an ethereal, dream-like fantasy feel, mainly due to the massive vocal harmonics bleeding together.

At the time, 10cc was struggling financially with Jonathan King's small UK Records label, so Stewart contacted Mercury Records, part of Phonogram, Incorporated.  Stewart says [and I quote]:  "I rang them.  I said come and have a listen to what we've done, come and have a listen to this track.  And they came up and they freaked, and they said, 'This is a masterpiece. How much money, what do you want?  What sort of a contract do you want?  We'll do anything.'  On the strength of that one song, we did a five-year deal with them for five albums and they paid us a serious amount of money" [end quote]. 

After signing the band for $1 million in February 1975, The Original Soundtrack album was the first 10cc LP to be released by Mercury Records.   Despite impressing their new label with the "I'm Not in Love" track, Phonogram felt that it was not suitable for release as a single due to its length.  However, due to great demand for releasing "I'm Not in Love" as a single, Mercury eventually bowed to the pressure and released it as the second single from the album.  The band members were forced to edit the track down to less than four minutes for radio play.  Once it charted, pressure from the public and the media caused the radio stations to revert to playing the full version.  The single "I'm Not in Love", released in May 1975, gave the band their second UK #1 in June 1975, staying there for two weeks.  The song also provided them with their first major US chart success when the song reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 3 weeks, and it reached #1 in Canada and Ireland.  In the UK the single was released in its full length version of over six minutes.  However, in the US and Canada it was released in an edited 3 minute 47 second version, and with a different B-side.  The Original Soundtrack LP also was a success, reaching #3 in the UK albums chart and #15 in the US albums chart.  

[Here is the edited down version of "I'm Not in Love" by 10cc:]

"I'm Not in Love" has enjoyed lasting popularity, with over three million plays on US radio since its release.  It won three Ivor Novello Awards in 1976 for Best Pop Song, International Hit of the Year, and Most Performed British Work.  

After 10cc's fourth album, the previously mentioned How Dare You!, Godley and Creme left the band to try to perfect a device they called "The Gizmo" or Gizmotron.  The Gizmo was a small module which attached to the bridge of an electric guitar.  Motors on the Gizmo made the guitar strings vibrate.  This vibration yielded resonant, synthesizer-like sounds from each string.  The device was originally conceived as a cost-saving measure for 10cc.  By using it, they could create in-house an almost infinite variety of sonic effects and orchestral textures.  A Gizmo was first used on 10cc's instrumental "Gizmo My Way".  Jimmy Page used a Gizmo on parts of the Led Zeppelin album In Through the Out Door.  Musitronics, the company originally licensed to manufacture the commercial version of the Gizmotron, released the product to the public in 1979.  Unfortunately quality was inconsistent and, plagued with design and manufacturing problems, the Musitronics Gizmotron did not live up to expectations and was a commercial failure.  Of course, had it survived, it would have struggled to compete technologically with today's synthesizers and digital sampling techniques.

In Episode 11, Rock and Roll Flashback podcasts reviewed the highlights of the second lineup of the Moody Blues.  In the 1970's the four original band members of 10cc were very familiar with the five band members in the second lineup of the Moody Blues.  Not only had the Hotlegs band opened for the Moodies on a 1970 UK tour, but the Moodies lead singer and guitarist, Justin Hayward, had known Eric Stewart since Eric's days with the Mindbenders.  In 1974 the Moody Blues band tentatively split up, due to band member exhaustion following a nine month tour of the US.  Each band member used the hiatus to work on solo projects.  Before guitarist-singer-songwriter Justin Hayward released his first solo album, which would be 1977's Songwriter, he worked with fellow Moodies band mate, bassist and singer John Lodge.  They created an album that they called Blue Jays.  With five backing musicians and the assistance of long-time Moody Blues producer Tony Clarke, the album was recorded between June and December 1974 at Threshold Westlake Audio Studios in West Hampstead, London.  The Blue Jays LP was released in March 1975, and it reached #4 on the UK albums chart and #16 on the US Billboard 200 albums chart.

Hayward's single "Blue Guitar" was released separately, after the Blue Jays album.  Here is the back story about the song.  One evening, while visiting Strawberry Studios in Stockport, Justin Hayward was chatting with the 10cc band members.  Eric Stewart mentioned that there was a day free in the studio the next day because someone had cancelled.  Justin mentioned that he had a song they could record called "You Are".  He said that the lyrics started out "You are the fortune of my ways."  In his "Tuesday Afternoon Video Series" on YouTube, Justin recalled that Lol Creme told him that the "You Are" title just didn't work and encouraged him to try something else.  So he re-wrote the song, and the next day came back with a new set of lyrics starting with "blue guitar, fortune of my ways, making of my days" and so on.  The five musicians went straight into the Strawberry Studios and laid down the track.  Justin played lead guitar and sang.  The song features the unique guitar sound of Justin's 1963 cherry red Gibson ES-335 guitar, that he ran through a compressor.  Backing him up were the four members of 10cc.  Eric Stewart engineered the session and played guitar, Kevin Godfrey played drums, Lol Creme played a slide guitar with a Gizmo attachment, and Graham Gouldman played bass.

After some time passed, Justin Hayward and John Lodge were looking for something to release promoting their Blue Jays album.  Justin suggested the "Blue Guitar" track.  John Lodge and producer Tony Clark agreed.  They went back to the Threshold Westlake Audio Studios in London, where John added some bass onto it and Tony mixed it.  The single "Blue Guitar" was released in September 1975 under the "Blue Jays" umbrella, as opposed to being released as a single by Justin Hayward.  The released version gave dual production credits to 10cc and Tony Clark.  The song was on the UK singles chart for seven weeks, peaking at #8 on November 9th.  However, it only reached #96 on the Billboard Hot 100.  Personally, I think that this dreamy song is one of the best tunes that Justin Hayward has ever written.    

[Here is Justin Hayward's song "Blue Guitar":]

Thank you for listening to another episode of Rock and Roll Flashback!  In this podcast I reviewed the connections between Strawberry Studios, the rock band 10cc, and the singer-songwriter Justin Hayward.  In particular I discussed two underrated songs that truly make my heart smile:  "I'm Not in Love" by 10cc and "Blue Guitar" by Justin Hayward.  I would argue that these two lovely songs are proof that there was some special magic coming out of Strawberry Studios in Stockport, England in the mid 1970's!  I'm Jumpin' John McDermott, and until next time...Rock On!