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Mike Oldfield

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Mike Oldfield

Michael Gordon Oldfield (born 15 May 1953 in Reading, Berkshire) is an English multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, working a style that blends progressive rock, folk, ethnic or world music, classical music, electronic music, New Age and more recently dance. His music is often elaborate and complex in nature. He is best known for his hit 1973 album Tubular Bells, which broke new ground as an instrumental concept album and launched Virgin Records, and for his 1983 hit single "Moonlight Shadow".

History

Oldfield's parents are Maureen and Raymond Oldfield, a nurse and doctor respectively. His sister Sally and brother Terry are successful musicians in their own right and have appeared on several of his albums. Mike Oldfield attended Presentation College at 63 Bath Rd., Reading, in Berkshire (now the Elvian School).

Early career

Oldfield's career began fairly early in his life, playing acoustic guitar in local folk clubs. At this time, he already had two fifteen minute instrumental pieces in which he would "go through all sorts of moods", a precursor to his landmark 1970s compositions. In his early teens, Oldfield was involved in a 'beat group' playing Shadows style music (he has often cited Hank Marvin as a major influence, and would later cover the Shadows' song "Wonderful Land"). In 1967 he and his sister Sally formed the folk duo The Sallyangie and were signed to Transatlantic Records after exposure in the local folk scene. An album, Children of the Sun was issued in 1968. After Sallyangie disbanded, he formed another duo with his brother Terry, called Barefoot, which took him back to rock music.[1]

In 1970 he joined ex-Soft Machine vocalist Kevin Ayers' backing group The Whole World playing bass guitar. The band also included keyboardist and composer David Bedford, who quickly befriended Oldfield and encouraged him in his composition of an early version of Tubular Bells. Bedford would later arrange and conduct an orchestral version of that album. With Ayers, Oldfield recorded two albums, Whatevershebringswesing and Shooting at the Moon. Both albums featured early versions of what would become his trademark sound.

Having recorded a demo version of Tubular Bells, Oldfield attempted to convince someone in the music industry to take the project on, but was told the project was unmarketable. However, in 1972 he met the young Richard Branson who was setting up his own record label, Virgin Records, and after playing the demo to engineers Tom Newman and Simon Heyworth, he began recording the 1973 version of the album.

1973–1991: Virgin years

Tubular Bells became Oldfield's most famous work. The instrumental composition was recorded in 1972 and launched on 25 May 1973 as the inaugural album of Richard Branson's Virgin Records label. The album was groundbreaking, as Oldfield played more than twenty different instruments in the multi-layered recording made in Branson's Manor studios, and its style progressed continuously, covering many diverse musical genres. The album quickly reached the Top 10 of the UK album chart and has spent 279 weeks on the chart to date, a figure bettered by only ten other albums[citation needed]. Its 2,575,000 UK sales put it at No.28 on the list of the best selling albums in the UK. In the U.S., it received attention chiefly by appearing in the soundtrack to The Exorcist. In the autumn of 1974, the follow-up LP, Hergest Ridge, was No.1 in the UK for three weeks before being dethroned by Tubular Bells. Although Hergest Ridge was released over a year after Tubular Bells, it reached No.1 first. Tubular Bells spent 11 weeks (10 of them consecutive) at No.2 before its one week at the top. In 1979, Tubular Bells was used as the main musical score for The Space Movie, a Virgin movie that celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. The Exorcist track is the score used for the landing sequence of the Apollo flights.

Like Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge is a two-movement instrumental piece, this time evoking scenes from Oldfield's Herefordshire country retreat. This was followed in 1975 with the pioneering world music piece Ommadawn, and 1978's Incantations which introduced more diverse choral performances from Sally Oldfield, Maddy Prior and the Queen's College Girls Choir.

Around the time of Incantations, Oldfield underwent a controversial self-assertiveness therapy course known as Exegesis.[2] Possibly as a result, the formerly reclusive musician staged a major European tour to promote the album, chronicled in his live album Exposed, much of which was recorded at the National Exhibition Centre near Birmingham, the first-ever concert there.

In 1975, Oldfield received a Grammy award for Best Instrumental Composition in "Tubular Bells – Theme From The Exorcist". In 1979, he recorded a version of the signature tune of the popular British Childrens Television programme, Blue Peter, which was used by the show for 10 years.

The early 1980s saw Oldfield make a transition to "mainstream" popular music, beginning with the inclusion of shorter instrumental tracks and contemporary cover versions on Platinum and QE2 (the latter named after the cruise ship). Soon afterwards he turned to songwriting, with a string of collaborations featuring various lead vocalists alongside his characteristic searing guitar solos. The best known of these is "Moonlight Shadow", his 1983 hit with Maggie Reilly. This song has been covered by various other artists, including Aselin Debison (Canadian folk singer) and DJ Mystic (electronic/techno). In 2002 it was a huge[vague] hit in central Europe for the German dance act Groove Coverage. The most successful Oldfield composition on the US pop charts during this period was actually a cover version — Hall & Oates's remake of Oldfield's "Family Man" for their 1982 album H2O.

Oldfield later turned to film and video, writing the score for Roland Joffé's acclaimed film The Killing Fields and producing substantial video footage for his album Islands. Islands continued what Oldfield had been doing on the past couple of albums, with an instrumental piece on one side and rock/pop singles on the other. Of these, 'Islands', sung by Bonnie Tyler and 'Magic Touch', with vocals by Max Bacon (US version) and Jim Price (UK/rest of the World) were the major hits. In the USA, Virgin America really worked[vague] 'Magic Touch', servicing[vague] album rock, new age and top 40 programmers. The single was a major success, reaching the top 10 on the Billboard album rock charts.

Earth Moving was released in July 1989, and was a moderate success. The album was the first to feature rock/pop songs on both sides. Several were released as singles: 'Innocent' and 'Holy' in Europe, and 'Hostage' in the USA for album rock stations. This was, however, a time of much friction with his record label. Virgin Records reportedly insisted that any future instrumental album should be billed as Tubular Bells 2. Oldfield's rebellious response was Amarok, an hour-long work featuring rapidly changing themes (supposedly devised to make cutting a single from the album impossible), unpredictable bursts of noise, and a very cleverly hidden Morse code insult directed at Richard Branson. Although regarded by many fans as his greatest work, it was not a commercial success. His parting shot from the Virgin label was Heaven's Open, which continued the veiled attacks on Branson but was notable for being the first time Oldfield had contributed all the lead vocals himself. Some[who?] say this was due to his desire to quit Virgin as soon as possible (he had previously stated that his voice did not belong on his recordings). This theory is supported by the fact that Heaven's Open is the only album that Oldfield released as Michael Oldfield, not Mike Oldfield.

1992–2003: Warner years

The very first thing Oldfield did when arriving at this new label, Warner Bros. Records, and as his final insult to his former label, was to write and release Tubular Bells II (This was a re-interpretation of Tubular Bells), which was premiered at a live concert at Edinburgh Castle. He then continued to embrace new musical styles, with The Songs of Distant Earth (based on Arthur C. Clarke's novel of the same name) exhibiting a softer "New Age" sound. In 1994 he also had an asteroid named after him, 5656 Oldfield.[3][4]

In 1995 Oldfield further continued to embrace new musical styles by producing a celtic themed album, Voyager. In 1998 he produced the third Tubular Bells album, Tubular Bells III (also premiered at a concert, this time in Horse Guards Parade, London), drawing from the dance music scene at his new home on the island of Ibiza. This album was still inspired by themes from Tubular Bells, but differed in lacking a clear two part layout.

During 1999 Oldfield released two albums. The first, Guitars, which used guitars as the source for all the sounds on the album, including percussion. The second, The Millennium Bell, consisted of pastiches of a number of styles of music that represented various historical stages over the past millennium. The work was performed live in Berlin for the city's millennium celebrations in 1999-2000.

Most recently, he added to his repertoire the Music VR project, combining his music with a virtual reality-based computer game. His first work on this project is Tr3s Lunas launched in 2002, a virtual game where the player can interact with a world full of new music. This project appeared as a double CD, one with the music, and the other with the game.

In 2003 he released Tubular Bells 2003, a re-recording of the original Tubular Bells, on CD, and DVD-Audio. This was done to "fix" many "imperfections" in the original due to the recording technologies of the early 1970s and limitations in time that he could spend in the recording studio. It celebrated the 30th anniversary of Tubular Bells, Oldfield's 50th birthday and his marriage to Fanny in the same year. The DVD-Audio version has the same content as the CD version in surround, and some demos of the original Tubular Bells. At around the same time Virgin released an SACD version containing both the original stereo album and the 1975 quadraphonic mix by Phil Newell. In the 2003 version, the original voice of the 'Master of Ceremonies' (Viv Stanshall) was replaced by the voice of John Cleese, Stanshall having died in the interim.

2004–present: Recent years

On 12 April, 2004 Oldfield launched his next virtual reality project, Maestro, which contains music from the Tubular Bells 2003 album and also some new chillout melodies. The games have since been made available free of charge on Oldfield's website.

A double album, Light & Shade was released on Mercury Records, with whom Mike had recently signed a three album deal. The two discs contain music of contrasting moods, one relaxed ("Light") and the other more edgy and moody ("Shade"). The album was released on 26 September 2005. "Light" includes a selection of tracks from the album in U-MYX format, which allows listeners to create their own remixes. Oldfield headlined the German Nokia Night of the Proms tour, consisting of 18 concerts in December 2006.[5]

His autobiography Changeling was published in May 2007 by Virgin Books.[6] In March 2008 Oldfield released his first classical album, Music of the Spheres; Karl Jenkins assisted with the orchestration.[7]

Personal life

Oldfield and his siblings were raised Roman Catholic, the faith of their Irish mother.[8] In the late 1970s, Oldfield briefly married Diana D'Aubigny (the sister of the Exegesis group leader), but this lasted just a few weeks.

Mike Oldfield has seven children. In the early 1980s, he had three children with Sally Cooper (Molly, Dougal and Luke). In the late 1980s, he had two children (Greta and Noah) with Norwegian singer Anita Hegerland. In the 2000s, he married Fanny Oldfield (née Vandekerckhove), whom he met during his time in Ibiza; they have two sons together (Jake and Eugene).

Mike is a motorcycle fan, he has five bikes, which includes: a BMW R1200GS, a Suzuki GSX-R750, a Suzuki GSX-R1000 and a Yamaha R1. He also says that some of his inspiration for composing comes from riding them.

In November 2006, fellow musician Noel Gallagher won a Spanish court case against Oldfield. Gallagher had bought an Ibiza villa for £2.5 million from Oldfield in 1999, but quickly discovered that part of the cliff-top property was falling into the sea. He was also annoyed by the huge “eyesore” of a yacht moored in his view – but it turned out it was his with the house. Gallagher and girlfriend Sara MacDonald spent summer 2006 at the villa, and the resulting court case awarded Gallagher a six-figure sum in compensation.[9]

In 2007 Oldfield caused a minor stir in the British press by criticizing Britain for being too controlling and over protective, specifically concentrating on the smoking ban which the country introduced in the summer of that year. With this Oldfield moved from his Gloucestershire home to Palma de Mallorca, Spain.[10][11] Oldfield has lived outside the UK in the past; including living in Los Angeles and Ibiza in the 1990s and Switzerland in the mid-1980s, for tax reasons. Oldfield also currently has a home in Monaco.

Discography

Main article: Mike Oldfield discography

Instruments

Oldfield is a multi-instrumentalist; however he considers himself to be predominantly a guitarist[citation needed]. For a large list of Oldfield's instruments, past and present, see the Instruments section at Tubular.net.

Guitars

Over the years Oldfield has used a various selection of guitars, some of the most noted being:

  • A 1961 salmon pink Fender Stratocaster – Used by Oldfield from the early 1980s until 2007 – Sold for £30,000.
  • A late 1980s amber PRS Artist Custom 24 – Used by Oldfield from the late 1980s to the present day.
  • A 1966 blonde Fender Telecaster serial no. 180728 – The only electric guitar used on Tubular Bells and also previously owned by Marc Bolan – Sold for the SANE charity in 2007.[12][13]
  • Various Gibson Les Paul and SGs – Used by Oldfield extensively in the 1970s and 80s.

Oldfield used a modified Roland GP8 effects processor in conjunction with his PRS Artist to get many of his heavily overdriven guitar sounds from the Earth Moving album onwards.[13]Oldfield has also been using Guitar synthesizers since the early 1990s, using a Roland GK2 equipped red PRS Custom 24 (sold in 2006) with a Roland VG8,[13] and most recently a Line 6 Variax.

Oldfield has somewhat of a unique playing style, usually playing with his fingers or nails and using different ways of creating vibrato, a "very fast side-to-side vibrato" or "violinist's vibrato".[14] Oldfield has also stated that his playing style originates from the way in which he started out as a musician; playing folk music and the bass guitar.[15]

Recording

Oldfield has self-recorded and produced many of his albums, and played the majority of the instruments that appear on them, largely at his home studios. In the 1990s and 2000s Oldfield has been mainly using DAWs such as Apple Logic Pro, Digidesign Pro Tools and Steinberg Nuendo as recording suites.[16] For composing classical music Oldfield has been quoted as using the software notation program, Sibelius,[6] combined with Apple Macintoshes[17]. In the 1980s Oldfield composed the score for the film The Killing Fields on a Fairlight CMI.[13]

See also

Bibliography

References

  1. ^ Not Totally Tubular by Dave Thompson – Goldmine July 18, 1997
  2. ^ This is the year of the expanding man... Karl Dallas – Melody Maker November 25, 1978
  3. ^ Oldfield 5656, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
  4. ^ Mike Oldfield Interview on BBC Radio 2, September 9, 1998, tubular.net
  5. ^ "German site of the Proms". Retrieved 2006-06-01.
  6. ^ a b Craft: Mike Oldfield, Resolution Magazine, March 2007
  7. ^ Mike Oldfield artist details, Universal Classics and Jazz
  8. ^ Interview with Mike Oldfield from BBC 1's Heaven and Earth programme August 25, 2002 "My mother being Irish, she was a Roman Catholic. They put me on the first stages of educating me to be a Catholic"
  9. ^ Noel gets home win over Mike, The Sun, November 10, 2006
  10. ^ Ringing the changes, The Times, October 28, 2007
  11. ^ Mike Oldfield quits 'prep school Britain' over smoking ban, This is London, dated October 21, 2007
  12. ^ Sale 15242 - Film and Rock & Roll Memorabilia, 20 Jun 2007, Bonhams
  13. ^ a b c d Interview with Mike Oldfield, Roland PowerOn magazine (Issue 4), June 6, 1999
  14. ^ Gareth Randall Interviews Mike Oldfield, June 1, 1995
  15. ^ Changeling, Mike Oldfield
  16. ^ Tubular Worlds, Sound On Sound, February, 1995
  17. ^ I use my Mac for... Composing music MacFormat, April 2008
  18. ^ "Mike Oldfield biography"
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