I first heard excerpts from Tubular Bells as the theme to the movie 'The Exorcist' within days of the film opening in Liverpool, England, back in 1973. Those first few bars of piano notes immediately struck me as being both highly imaginative and original, and absolutely perfect for that particular film.
I was about 14 years old and this was the first time I'd ever paid that much attention to the seemingly haunting piano phrases that made up what was really a small part of the orginal film score. I saw 'Mike Oldfield' in the credits and the following day, it just so happened that Richard Branson's small and newly opened Virgin record store in Liverpool (one of only three equally sized stores in the UK at that time) were playing and promoting what was their first record release 'Tubular Bells'. Within a year, almost every one I knew owned a copy of that album along with just about everyone else on the planet, particularly after the success of the Exorcist movie. The endless debates regarding the recording of that album raged on.. was it all synthesisers? Was it just Mike on his own or where there other musicians? The fact that Mike Oldfield was so young (19 or so) and that he didn't appear anywhere in the media made the mystery surrounding the recording of that album even more open to exaggeration! Well.. the fact that Tubular Bells has been one of the most successful albums ever made, coupled with the sheer magic in both it's composition and production, make for a very good example of what Classic Albums are all about... so let's take a closer look at what made this album so unique for it's time..
Mike Oldfield was living in a small flat in Tottenham, London, England, when he produced the first demo recordings of what was to become Tubular Bells. He had borrowed a Bang & Olufsen stereo Beocord 1/4" tape machine from Kevin Ayers; of 'The Whole World', the band that Mike had recently left. By blocking off the erase head with cardboard and sticky tape, Mike Oldfield had managed to produce a few overdubs of guitars and organ, and even his mother's Hoover to help in producing a bagpipe effect.
Armed with a collection of demos, Mike was repeatedly told that his music was not marketable by the various record companies he'd approached, but it was while working at Virgin's new studio 'The Manor' in Oxfordshire, that Mike played the tapes to Tom Newman who was immediately enamoured by what he heard. In fact, with only a small amount of persuasion, Tom Newman managed to get Richard Branson to agree to allow Mike some studio time whenever the studio wasn't being used and part one was completed in a week! The album was to become Virgin's first record release (V2001) after Richard had failed to sell the album on to various major record labels... they simply released it themselves!
The album was recorded onto an Ampex 2" 16 track recorder just before 24 track recording technology began to appear and what was particularly remarkable from both a performance and production standpoint, is that the number of overdubs never effected the quality of the mixdown.
Trevor Key, who was known for his photgraphs of metallic objects in particular, was responsible for the album sleeve design and he went on to do much more cover design and photography for acts like Jethro Tull, Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel.
One of the less talked about things that made Tubular Bells so intriguing is that it gave the world a view of what overdubbing and multitracking was all about by simply 'building up' the overdubs in sequence on a musical level, and by announcing each of the instruments from grand piano to tubular bells as they enter into the arrangement at the end of side one (or part 1 if your thinking in terms of CDs). However, regradless of the techology used or the number of overdubs included in the production, the music itself is absolutely magnificent, innovative, and widley appealing on just about every level one can think of. To fully appreciate the enormity of the impact this album had.. you only need to understand one thing.. the album was entirely instrumental at a time when people like Vangelis, Jean Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream, and Kraftwerk had not yet been unleashed to the public!
The highly imaginative and seemingly uniquely inspired musicanship makes the album a true classic in itself... expertly co-ordinated and arranged, exceptionally well produced and engineered, Tubular Bells stands out as one of the single most important albums ever to have emerged from the 70s and as unforgivable as it might sound, without Tubular Bells, there would never have been a Virgin records empire and without Tom Newman and Richard Branson, there might never have been a Tubular Bells!
