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T 40


ake one red-hot axeman, steeped in the stew of the British beat boom, and armed with a chart-topping US hit single; add the best British songwriter this side of Ray


Davies; sprinkle on a couple of eccentric art students, and lock them all away in a studio of their own. God knows what you’d get from such a combination today, and nobody was really sure what would happen in the late ’60s either.


But, between 1967 and ’72, the teamof ex- Wayne Fontana&The Mindbenders guitarist Eric Stewart, ‘Bus Stop’/‘No Milk Today’/‘For Your Love’ songsmith Graham Gouldman and an odd singing duo that Giorgio Gomelsky had once christened Frabjoy& Runcible Spoon – Kevin Godley and Lol Creme – combined to create someof the most startling music of the era; a succession of so many singles and sessions that you could stuff a box set with their prolusions and still leave people complaining that you’d left their favourites off.


Strawberry Studios was their playground, the brainchild of Stewart, once The Mindbenders melted, and Peter Tattershall, a former roadie for Billy J. Kramer’s Dakotas (Graham Gouldman later became a third partner). Inter City Studios was a dilapidated concern situated over a hi-fi shop in Stockport, and Tattershall recalled, “We had lined the studio with egg boxes ’cause we thought


that we couldn’t really afford acoustic tiles, and that was the nearest thing. It was very basic. But, believe it or not, we did some quite good things in there. We even had the original Sid Lawrence Orchestra. But then we had to move because it was... the studio was next to a listed building, and we were classed as a fire hazard.”


Stewart continues, “Then the lease ran out, and they kicked us out. So we had to make a big decision, whether we were going to build a real studio or just give the whole thing up. And, fortunately, this building came up in Stockport, at a very low rent, but a really, really good size. So we leased the building and got some money together to buy some more equipment, went to the bank to get some money, and we renamed it Strawberry Studios after ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, The Beatles.”


From these humble beginnings, Strawberry would rise to become one of the best, and best appointed studios in Britain, staffed by one of the most courageous quartets in the country. And, at that point, one of the closest-knit. Godley and Creme had been friends since the early ’60s; Gouldman since not long after. According to Godley, “We both hung out at the local youth club in our teens. I ran the ‘Art Group’ on Tuesday nights, and Graham was a rung further up the music ladder in a slick, bow- tied cabaret group called The Whirlwinds. They did jokes, dance moves and the drummer played a timbale solo, but


Graham played a red Stratocaster so his future was, therefore, assured. They also had almost exclusive use of the bigger rehearsal space at the club.”


The Sabres


Aside from his artistic leanings, Godley was also the drummer in a dirty R&B combo called The Sabres, with occasional guitar guest Lol Creme. Although he claims, “Actually, we weren’t that dirty. Our singer played the trumpet and the band played retirement homes and ice-skating rinks. Little did I know Graham was planning to head hunt me for his new group, The Mockingbirds.”


Gouldman was a great guitarist, but in spite of his later fame, at this point he had barely dreamed of writing songs; indeed, when The Whirlwinds landed a one-off single deal with the HMV label, it was to the 16-year-old Creme that he turned for the B-side, ‘Baby, Not Like Me’. The A-side was a Buddy Holly song, ‘Look At Me’.


Despite being recorded at Abbey Road Studios, then the home of themost innovative popmusic in the world, neither side broke newground – “Probably because we were in Studio Two,” laughs Gouldman. “The Beatles got Studio Three.” ‘Look At Me’ adhered closely to Holly’s prototype, with a casual nod to the Stones, who had just made the Top 3 with another Holly song, ‘Not Fade Away’; Creme’s effort, despite a great


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