Undoubtedly one of the most naturally gifted musicians ever to have come out of England, Mike Oldfield celebrates his 70th birthday this year, which coincides with the 50th anniversary of his first solo album, Tubular Bells. Born in Reading, Berkshire, Mike’s first professional music experience came as half of folk duo, The Sallyangie, alongside his sister Sally. He then came to the attention of Kevin Ayers, playing on two classic albums, Shooting At The Moon and Whatevershebringswesing. By 1971, Oldfield was a bassist in blues-rock group The Arthur Louis Band and worked on solo material in his spare time. It was in September of that year that a fateful meeting occurred. The Arthur Louis Band decamped for recording sessions to The Manor Studio in Oxfordshire, a newly built facility owned by businessman Richard Branson and run by producer-engineers Tom Newman and Simon Heyworth.
It was Newman and Heyworth who first heard the solo material that Oldfield was working on. Impressed by the young multi-instrumentalist’s skill and vision, the pair were determined to record his work. They soon talked Branson into allocating official studio time for Oldfield’s project and the finished album went on to become the very first release on Virgin Records. Since then, Tubular Bells has grown into a phenomenon, and Mike Oldfield has enjoyed a long and illustrious career.
Speaking from his home in the Bahamas, Oldfield talks with passion of his formative musical experiences.
“I remember awakening to the existence of music when I was about six years old,” he says. “Our family had a Dansette record player at the time and my earliest memorable tune was The Teddy Bears’ Picnic. I tried to request it on the radio but they never played it for me.
“Then I began to hear my mother playing Puccini’s opera, Madama Butterfly, which was probably the first classical music I ever heard. Then my sister started playing a lot of Elvis Presley and Mario Lanza arias, until one day I came home from school and heard an amazing track playing on the Dansette. I found out it was Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. It really had a profound effect on me, even as a child of six – my jaw dropped, and I thought: what is that? I was enraptured by it.”
The uniqueness of Oldfield’s childhood isn’t lost on him.
“I was lucky to be born in an amazing era for music – the dawn of the 60s and the birth of rock’n’roll. The Beatles and the Stones were releasing their first records and more and more exciting music was being born all the time. So I was riding the crest of that wave as a young listener for over 10 years, at the same time as I was developing my own musical skills.”
Oldfield’s eclectic tastes extended beyond blues-rock and classical. “One day I discovered the folk guitarists Bert Jansch and John Renbourn,” he recalls. “They were a key inspiration for me with their extraordinary, complex guitar pieces. I spent endless hours learning and copying them note for note. That was a basis for the gradual development of my own guitar style, which very soon included electric guitars of all kinds.”
The budding instrumentalist’s musical world quickly expanded. “There was a band called Centipede that I discovered when I was working with Kevin Ayers. I loved them as they were doing interesting things with overdubs and multitracking. Later on I discovered more classical composers such as Bach, Mozart, Sibelius, Faure, and special pieces such as Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie. Of course, being half Irish, I love celtic music, but I don’t compartmentalise the music I love to listen to – it’s all music to my ears and forms a perfect whole in my mind.”
These varied influences eventually coalesced to become Tubular Bells, and Oldfield’s enduring fondness for the album is apparent.
“Tubular Bells I is still my favourite,” he admits. “It remains unique and has stood the test of time. I can’t believe it’s 50 years since it was released.”
asks Oldfield about his most vivid recollections
