10cc
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10cc |
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| 10cc | ||
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| Background information | ||
| Origin | Stockport, England | |
| Genre(s) | Rock/Pop, Soft Rock,Classic Rock | |
| Years active | 1972 – 1995 | |
| Associated acts |
Hotlegs, Doctor
Father, Godley & Creme, Wax |
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| Former members | ||
| Graham
Gouldman Eric Stewart Kevin Godley Lol Creme Paul Burgess Rick Fenn Stuart Tosh |
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10cc was a British pop band which achieved its greatest commercial success during the 1970s.
Contents
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The band initially comprised 4 members, Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, who wrote and recorded together for about 3 years before taking on the name of 10cc in 1972.
The lineup featured two strong songwriting teams who injected
their songs with sharp wit and lyrical dexterity. The more "commercial"
team of Stewart (vocals, guitars, keyboards) and Gouldman (bass,
guitars, mandolin, zither, vocals) were generally fairly
straightforward 'pop' songwriters, who created some of the group's most
accessible material. In the sleeve notes to the 1996 CD reissue of
their 1975 LP
The experimental half of 10cc was Godley (vocals, drums, percussion) and Creme (vocals, guitar, keyboards), who brought a distinctive "art school" sensibility and a more "cinematic" writing style to the group.
All 4 members were skilled multi-instrumentalists and vocalists, and each could perform convincingly as lead singers. The original lineup recorded a string of Top Ten singles and released four LPs, achieving increasingly wide popularity and chart success.
The band suffered a split in 1976, when Godley and Creme left to form Godley & Creme, leaving Gouldman and Stewart to continue touring and recording as 10cc with a variety of musicians including Rick Fenn, Stuart Tosh, Andrew Gold and Paul McCartney enlisted for each album.
The band took a nine-year break from 1983, before releasing 2 more albums. There have been no albums after 1995, although in 2004 Gouldman began touring with several peripheral band members, billing themselves as "10cc featuring Graham Gouldman and Friends".
The band’s professional beginnings can be traced to the early
1960s, as for almost full decade before 10cc was founded, various
future 10cc members joined together to work with each other on a variety of
recording projects. For 3 10cc members, their associations can be
traced back even further: Godley & Creme had known each other
as children in Manchester, and Gouldman and Godley had
gone to the same secondary school. Their shared passion for music meant
the 3 would often be playing at their local
The earliest known example of future 10cc members collaborating on record occurred in 1964, when Graham Gouldman's beat-group band The Whirlwinds recorded a Lol Creme composition ("Baby Not Like You") as the B-side of their only single. The Whirlwinds shortly thereafter re-shuffled their line-up, and became a quartet known as The Mockingbirds; this group featured Gouldman on vocals and guitar, and Kevin Godley on drums. To join The Mockingbirds, Godley jumped ship from the ranks of The Sabres, a band he had been in with Lol Creme that never made it to the recording studio.
The Mockingbirds issued 5 non-charting singles in 1965 and '66 before dissolving -- but even as The Mockingbirds' singles were flopping, Gouldman was making a name for himself as a hit songwriter. The Yardbirds' "Heart Full of Soul" and "For Your Love", and The Hollies' "Look Through Any Window" and "Bus Stop" were all Gouldman-penned hits of 65/66. Other notable Gouldman hits of the era included Herman's Hermits' "No Milk Today", "East West" and "Listen People".
Meanwhile, the 4th future member of 10cc, was also tasting
significant pop music success: guitarist Eric Stewart was a member of
In mid-1968, Graham Gouldman joined Stewart in The Mindbenders, playing on some tour dates and writing and playing on the band's final single, 1968's "Uncle Joe The Ice Cream Man" (which was arranged by future Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones). This single did not chart, and as the feeling within the band was that they had had their day, The Mindbenders broke up.
In the dying days of The Mindbenders, Stewart began recording demos of new material at Inner City Studios, a Stockport studio then owned by Peter Tattersall. In July 1968 Stewart joined Tattersall as a partner in the studio, where he could further hone his skills as a recording engineer. In late 1968, the studio was renamed Strawberry Studios, after The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever".
Gouldman, meanwhile, was much more in demand as a songwriter than as a performer, and in 1969 he began writing for Marmalade, an independent label owned by former Yardbirds manager Giorgio Gomelsky. Gouldman would regularly demo his material at Strawberry (in addition to other studios).
Meanwhile, after The Mockingbirds broke up, Godley and Creme had reunited and issued one single as The Yellow Bellow Boom Room in June 1967.
In 1969 Gouldman took Godley and Creme to a Marmalade label recording session. Label boss Gomelsky was sufficiently impressed by Godley's falsetto to offer him and Creme a recording deal. Godley & Creme recorded number of basic tracks with Stewart on guitar and Gouldman on bass, and one song, "I'm Beside Myself", was released as a single credited to Frabjoy and Runcible Spoon.
Gomelsky planned to market the team as a duo in the vein of Simon and Garfunkel. Plans for an album by Frabjoy and Runcible Spoon faltered, however, when Marmalade ran out of funds.
Before Marmalade went under, both Godley and Gouldman placed solo tracks on "100 Proof", a 1969 sampler album issued by the label. These solo tracks both involved Stewart and Creme.
By 1969, all 4 members of the original 10cc line-up were
working together reguarly at Strawberry Studios. Around the same time,
noted American bubblegum pop writer-producers
Among the recordings from this period was "Sausalito", a #86 US hit credited to Ohio Express, and released in July 1969. In reality, the song featured Gouldman on lead vocal, and vocal and instrumental backing by the other 3 future 10cc members.
In December 1969 Kasenetz and Katz agreed to a proposal by Gouldman that he work solely at Strawberry, rather than moving constantly between Stockport, London and New York. Gouldman convinced the pair that these throwaway two-minute songs could all be written, performed and produced by him and his 3 colleagues, Stewart, Godley and Creme, at a fraction of the price of hiring outside session musicians. Kasenetz and Katz booked the studio for 3 months.
Kevin Godley recalled:
| “ | We did a lot of tracks in a very short time – it was really like a machine. Twenty tracks in about two weeks – a lot of crap really – really shit. We used to do the voices, everything – it saved 'em money. We even did the female backing vocals. | ” |
The three-month project resulted in a number of tracks that appeared under various band names owned by Kasenetz-Katz, including "There Ain't No Umbopo" by Crazy Elephant, "When He Comes" by Fighter Squadron and "Come On Plane" by Silver Fleet (all 3 with lead vocals by Godley), and the million-selling "Susan's Tuba" by Freddie and the Dreamers (which featured lead vocals by Gouldman).
Lol Creme remembered:
| “ | Singles kept coming out under strange names that had really been recorded by us. I've no idea how many there were, or what happened to them all. | ” |
When the three-month production deal with Kasenetz-Katz ended, Gouldman returned to New York to work as a staff songwriter for Super K Productions while the remaining 3 continued to dabble in the studio.
With Gouldman absent, Godley, Creme and Stewart continued recording singles. The first, "Neanderthal Man", released under the name Hotlegs, began life as a test of drum layering at the new Strawberry Studios mixing desk, but when released as a single by Fontana Records in July 1970, climbed to No.2 in the UK charts and became a worldwide hit, selling more than two million copies. Around the same time, the trio released "Umbopo" under the name of Doctor Father. The song, a slower, longer and more melancholic version of the track earlier released under the name of Crazy Elephant, failed to chart.
Reverting to the successful band name Hotlegs, in early 1971
Godley, Creme and Stewart recorded the lone Hotlegs album
The band also continued outside production work at Strawberry,
working with Dave Berry, Wayne
Fontana,
The experience of working on Solitaire, which became a success for Sedaka, was enough to prompt the band to seek recognition on their own merits. In an interview in 1984, Gouldman – who by 1972 was back at Strawberry Studios – said:
| “ | It was Neil Sedaka's success that did it, I think. We'd just been accepting any job we were offered and were getting really frustrated. We knew that we were worth more than that, but it needed something to prod us into facing that. We were a bit choked to think that we'd done the whole of Neil's first album with him just for flat session fees when we could have been recording our own material. | ” |
Once again a four-piece, the group recorded a Stewart/Gouldman song, "Waterfall", in early 1972. Stewart offered the acetate to Apple Records. He waited months before receiving a note from the label saying the song was not commercial enough to release as a single.
Undeterred by Apple's rejection, the group decided to plug another song which had been written as a possible B-side to "Waterfall", a Godley/Creme composition entitled "Donna". The song was a Frank Zappa-influenced '50s doo-wop parody, a sharp mix of commercial pop and irony with a chorus sung in falsetto. Stewart told Record Collector: "We knew it had something. We only knew of one person who was mad enough to release it, and that was Jonathan King." Stewart called King, a flamboyant entrepreneur, producer and recording artist, who drove to Strawberry, listened to the track and "fell about laughing", declaring: "It's fabulous, it's a hit."
King signed the band to his UK Records label in July 1972 and dubbed them 10cc. By his own account, King chose the name after having a dream in which he was standing in front of the Hammersmith Odeon in London where the hoarding read "10cc The Best Band in the World". A widely-repeated claim, disputed by King and Godley , but confirmed in a 1988 interview by Creme, is that the band name represented a volume of semen that was more than the average amount ejaculated by men, thus emphasising their potency or prowess.
"Donna", released as the first 10cc single, reached #2 in the UK in September 1972.
Although their second single, a similarly '50s-influenced song
called "Johnny Don't Do It", was not a major chart success, "Rubber
Bullets", a catchy satirical take on the "Jailhouse Rock" concept,
became a hit internationally and gave 10cc their first British #1
single in May 1973. They consolidated their success a few months later
with "The Dean And I", which peaked at #10 in August. They released two
singles, "Headline Hustler" and the self-mocking "The Worst Band In The
World" and launched a UK tour on August 26, 1973 before returning to
Strawberry Studios in November to record the remainder of their second
LP,
"Sheet Music" became the band's breakthrough album, remaining on the UK charts for six months and paving the way for a US tour in February 1974.
In February 1975 the band announced they had signed with Mercury
Records for $1 million. The catalyst for the deal was one song – "
| “ | At that point in time we were still on Jonathan King's label, but struggling. We were absolutely skint, the lot of us, we were really struggling seriously, and Philips Phonogram wanted to do a deal with us. They wanted to buy Jonathan King's contract. 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, we'll sign it". On the strength of that one song, we did a five-year deal with them for 5 albums and they paid us a serious amount of money. | ” |
Although it bore an unlikely title (picked up from a radio
talk show), the jaunty single "Life Is A Minestrone" (1975) was another
UK Top 10 placing, peaking at #7. Their biggest success came with the
dreamy "
A collaborative effort built around a title by Stewart, "I'm Not in Love" is notable for its innovative production, especially its richly overdubbed choral backing.
10cc would also do some production work for Justin Hayward during this time on his single "Blue Guitar" for his "Blue Jays" project with John Lodge.
Their 4th LP, How Dare You! (1976), featuring another Hipgnosis cover, furnished two more UK Top Ten hits – the witty "Art For Art's Sake" (#5 in December 1975) and "I'm Mandy, Fly Me" (#7, April 1976). But by this time the once close personal and working relationships between the 4 members had begun to fray, and it was the last album with the original lineup.
10cc's success prompted the 1976 re-release of the Hotlegs
album under the new title
Soon after the release of How Dare You, Godley and Creme left 10cc to work on a project that eventually evolved into the triple LP set Consequences (1976), a sprawling concept album that featured contributions from satirist Peter Cook and jazz legend Sarah Vaughan.
The first of a series of albums by Godley & Creme, Consequences began as a demonstration record for the "Gizmotron", an electric guitar effect they had invented. The device, which fitted over the bridge of an electric guitar, contained six small motor-driven wheels attached to small keys (four wheels for electric basses); when the key was depressed, the Gizmotron wheels bowed the guitar strings, producing notes and chords with endless sustain. First used during the recording of the Sheet Music track "Old Wild Men", the device was designed to further cut their recording costs: by using it on an electric guitar with studio effects, they could effectively simulate strings and other sounds, enabling them to dispense with expensive orchestral overdubs.
In a 2007 interview with the ProgGnosis website, Godley explained: "We left because we no longer liked what Gouldman and Stewart were writing. We left because 10cc was becoming safe and predictable and we felt trapped."
But speaking to Uncut magazine 10 years earlier, , he expressed regret about the band breaking up as they embarked on the Consequences project:
| “ | We'd
reached a certain crossroads with 10cc and already spent 3 weeks on
the genesis of what turned out to be Consequences
... The stuff that we were coming up with didn't have any home, we
couldn't import it into 10cc. And we were kind of constrained by 10cc
live ... We felt like creative people who should give ourselves the
opportunity to be as creative as possible and leaving seemed to be the
right thing to do at that moment.
Unfortunately, the band wasn't democratic or smart enough at that time to allow us the freedom to go ahead and do this project and we were placed in the unfortunate position of having to leave to do it. Looking back, it was a very northern work ethic being applied to the group, all for one and one for all. If we'd been a little more free in our thinking with regard to our work practices, the band as a corporate and creative entity could have realised that it could have been useful rather than detrimental for two members to spend some time developing and then bring whatever they'd learned back to the corporate party. Unfortunately, that wasn't to be. Our contemporaries were people like Roxy Music who allowed that to happen and they gained from that ... Had we been allowed to get it out of our system and come back home, who knows what would have happened. |
” |
In a BBC Radio Wales interview Stewart gave his side of the split:
| “ | I
was sorry to see them go. But we certainly did fall out at the time. I
thought they were crazy. They were just walking away from something so
big and successful. We'd had great success around the world and I
thought we were just breaking in a very, very big way. The collective
dynamite of those 4 people, 4 people who could all write, who
could all sing a hit song. In one band.
(Yet) I think it becomes claustrophobic, in the fact that you're trying to perfect things and you're looking at each other and eventually you maybe say this relationship is a little too tight for me now, and I need to break away. And that's what in retrospect, I found out long after because I still speak to Godley and Creme who – Lol is my brother-in-law, so I've got to see him – but for quite a while we didn't talk. I just said you're out of your minds for leaving this band. We were on such a winning curve, Graham Gouldman and I had to decide, are we going to be 5cc? Are we gonna scrap the name completely? Well, we thought we, no, we'd better carry on because we, this is 10cc, we are 10cc, this band. Two of our members are leaving us and that's not our problem, but we've got to carry it on. |
” |
Godley & Creme went on to achieve cult success as a
songwriting and recording duo, scoring several hits and releasing a
string of innovative LPs and singles. Having honed their skills on the
equally innovative clips that they made to promote their own singles,
they returned to their visual arts roots and became better-known as
directors of music videos in the 1980s, creating
acclaimed videos for chart-topping acts including George
Harrison ("When We Was Fab"), The
Police ("Every Breath You Take"), Duran
Duran ("Girls On Film"), Frankie Goes to Hollywood
("Two Tribes") and Herbie Hancock ("Rockit"). The video
for their 1985
single "
For further information see: Godley & Creme
After the departure of Godley and Creme, Stewart and Gouldman opted to continue as 10cc, recruiting drummer Paul Burgess (later of The Icicle Works) for session work on their next LP, Deceptive Bends (1977). The album, recorded at the newly-completed Strawberry South Studio in Dorking, Surrey, reached No. 3 in Britain and No. 33 in the US and also yielded two hit singles, "The Things We Do For Love" and "Good Morning Judge".
In 1977 10cc embarked on an international tour with guitarist Rick Fenn, keyboardist Tony O'Malley and drummer Stuart Tosh (ex-Pilot) and recorded a live album, Live And Let Live (1977), which mixed the hits with material from the previous 3 LPs.
Fenn, Tosh, Burgess and keyboardist
The band suffered a major setback in 1979 when Stewart was seriously injured in a car crash. He told the BBC:
| “ | It flattened me completely. I damaged my left ear, I damaged my eye very badly. I couldn't go near music. I couldn't go near anything loud and I love music and motor-racing. I had to stay away from both things for a long time, for about six months. And the momentum of this big machine that we'd had rolling slowed and slowed and slowed. And on the music scene, the punk thing had come in a big way. The Sex Pistols, The Clash, lots of things like that. So by the time I was fit again to play, I think we'd just missed the bus. It'd gone. And whatever we did after that, we got a few tickles here and there and we could continue touring forever on the strength of the past hits, but it didn't feel right again, we just didn't have that public with us. | ” |
Gouldman, too, considered the aftermath of Stewart's accident to be a turning point. In a 1995 BBC interview he said:
| “ | Really, after '78 things went downhill for us. I don't know what it was. We'd been doing it for so long, maybe we should have had a break then, rather than in '83 when we did have a break, or brought new blood in or done something. And even as the things were getting bad, we thought, 'Ah, it's gonna be alright, don't worry about it, it'll be great'. | ” |
In early 1980 Gouldman and Stewart both released solo albums
and also signed with
Gouldman and Stewart subsequently jettisoned the rest of the band before returning to the Mercury label to record Ten Out of 10 (1981) as a duo. It failed to make a major impression with audiences. The UK and US versions of the albums differ, with the US version substituting 3 Gouldman/Stewart tracks for songs recorded with Andrew Gold.
Stewart then recorded a 1982 solo album with participation from Gouldman on one track. The duo's next 10cc LP, Windows in the Jungle, (1983) used session heavyweights including drummer Steve Gadd, but the album was dominated by Stewart; Gouldman performed no lead vocals on the record.
After 1983, the band went into recess as Stewart produced
recordings for
In 1992 the original 4 members reunited to record
The album was not a "reunion" in the strict sense of the word. Creme and Godley agreed to guest on the album to fulfill their obligation to Polydor -- both had owed Polydor one album when they split in the late '80s. Godley and Creme sang background vocals on several tracks on the album. Godley also sang the lead on one song, "The Stars Didn't Show".
Gouldman, in a 1995 interview,was philosophical about the album: "When we finally did come back to record again, it was based on market research that our record company had done, that said a new 10cc album would do really, really well. And, ah, history has proved that wrong." Yet according to Stewart, both he and Gouldman had approached the album positively. "We wrote in a three-month period, 22 songs. Every day we were coming up with new ideas, and they were getting better and better, as far as we were concerned. And they sounded like 10cc songs again."
In 1995 the band released
Stewart has since commented: "10cc is well and truly finished as far as I am concerned, but I can't guarantee that GG won't try to squeeze the last drop of blood out of it. It was a great band for most of its life and should be left at that, where it had some real meaning to all of us, fans and musicians alike."
In 2001 Graham Gouldman released his 3rd solo album,
In January 2004 Godley and Gouldman reconvened to write more songs. Godley explained:
| “ | In a nutshell ...unfinished business. In all the years we’ve known each other we’ve only written 3 pure, Godley-Gouldman songs. That, and a desire to find out if the music muscle still worked with someone I enjoyed and didn’t have to spend weeks getting to know. | ” |
By May 2007, Godley and Gouldman's website was offering 5 downloadable tracks, "The Same Road", "Johnny Hurts", "Beautifulloser.com", "Hooligan Crane" and "Son of Man". The songs are the initial "offering" of a group of songs they have been working on over the past two years.
In 2006 Lol Creme joined producers Trevor Horn and Stephen Lipson and musicians Chris Braide and Ash Soan to form The Producers. The band began recording its debut album in late 2006 and has released one track, "Freeway", on MySpace.
A 2006 10cc compilation from Universal,
| Year | Title | Peak Chart Position | ||
| UK | US | CAN | ||
| 1972 | "Donna" | #2 | - | - |
| 1972 | "Johnny Don't Do It" | - | - | - |
| 1973 | "Rubber Bullets" | #1 | #73 | #76 |
| 1973 | "The Dean and I" | #10 | - | - |
| 1974 | "Headline Hustler" | - | - | - |
| 1974 | "The Worst Band In The World" | - | - | - |
| 1974 | "The Wall Street Shuffle" | #10 | #103 | #87 |
| 1974 | "Silly Love" | #24 | - | - |
| 1975 | "Life Is A Minestrone" / "Lazy Ways" | #7 | #104 | - |
| 1975 | " |
#1 | #2 | #1 |
| 1975 | "Art For Art's Sake" | #5 | #83 | #69 |
| 1976 | "I'm Mandy, Fly Me" | #6 | #60 | #62 |
| 1976 | "The Things We Do For Love" | #6 | #5 | #1 |
| 1977 | "Good Morning Judge" | #5 | #69 | - |
| 1977 | "People In Love" | - | #40 | #90 |
| 1978 | "Dreadlock Holiday" | #1 | #44 | #30 |
| 1978 | "For You And I" | - | #85 | #82 |
| 1980 | "One Two Five" | - | - | - |
| 1980 | "It Doesn't Matter At All" | - | - | - |
| 1981 | "Les Nouveaux Riches" | - | - | - |
| 1981 | "Don't Turn Me Away" | - | - | #38 |
| 1981 | "The Power Of Love" | - | - | - |
| 1982 | "Run Away" | #50 | - | - |
| 1983 | "Feel The Love" | #87 | - | - |
| 1983 | "24 Hours" | #78 | - | - |
| 1995 | "I'm Not in Love" (Acoustic re-recording) | #29 | - | - |
| Year | Title | Peak Chart Position | |
| UK | US | ||
| 1973 | 10cc | #36 | - |
| 1974 | #9 | #81 | |
| 1975 | #4 | #15 | |
| 1976 | How Dare You! | #5 | #47 |
| 1977 | Deceptive Bends | #3 | #31 |
| 1978 | Bloody Tourists | #3 | #69 |
| 1980 | #35 | #180 | |
| 1981 | Ten Out of 10 | - | - |
| 1983 | Windows in the Jungle | #70 | - |
| 1992 | - | - | |
| 1995 | - | - | |
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