ringing and it was time for a rethink.”
A new project, Doctor Father, went no Ain’t
out where it belonged. I remember Lol guit
coming up with this cool open guitar and
eventually released under the name ‘Doctor Father’.” (It was also released as the Kasenatz-Katz
minutes or thereabouts and it was released
and the nam
part of the Kasenatz-Katz package under The Crazy Elephant brand name.)
und
Strawberry Takes Off the meantime,
ening
money opening a studio so far fromLondon. Mary
venture that it was a waste of time and openin
of
Harvest, Tony Christie, Shep’s Banjo Band, Elias Hunk and The Fourmost (who cut a version of ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ under the guise of Format) all passed through the doors in the first years of the newdecade.
The Scaffold,Mary Hopkin, Barclay James Chri
Ban
James Band
“Everything was pop, pop and more pop with boozy northern showbiz thrown in for good measure,” laughs Godley.
forever. It was a long song, about six or
time. Everybody liked it, but couldn’t work remember
liked it, but
tuning and two hypnotic chords and us par
writing the song at my parent’s house… was
house…
In the meantime, Strawberry continued opening its doors to an incredible array of talent – incredible, because Stewart at
arr of
remembers being told at the outset of the the venture
“I said, ‘Look, I’m fed up here in New York. I want to take all the stuff we’re recording here, and do it with my own guys back in England. Those records – the early ones – were Kevin, Lol and myself, and Eric was engineering them.”
dancers, prancers, muggers, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come… etc. etc.”
One particularly memorable session, he says, came with the call to cut a single with a local ventriloquist. “I don’t
don
remember how many vocal takes it took before we realised the dummy didn’t have to be there, and it wouldn’t actually matter if we saw the guy’s lips move.
“It was an extraordinary time. It’s just that
further. “There Ain’t No Umbopo’,” Godley one of
Umbopo’,” Godley
recalls, “was one of those runt songs that hunghung around looking for a home for a long time.
“Anything vaguely artistic or experimental and
was disguised as ‘novelty’ and shoehorned invisibly into whatever came in the door. I think the key difference between most seminal production units and ourselves was this weird non-rock learning curve and a perverse policy to tackle any track, however dumb and outlandish. We
recorded football teams, stand ups, jingles,
Peter Tattersall at the Helios desk, circa 1971.
Strawberry wasn’t a place for ‘real’ bands to record, at least not at first, and we found that
found that frustrating. The vibe was more Dann
atin was
passed through Strawberry’s portals back then, plus the occasional genius (Peter Cowap)
Many weird and wonderful local acts Str
Cowap) and the four of us using downtime our
us
to road test our own ideas. (Alan Parsons was
was one man learning to be The Alan at
man Parsons Project at Strawberry).” and trio over
The Strawberry team played on Solomon King’s version of Lynsey De Paul’s ‘When You Gotta Go’. Dave Berry, Wayne Fontana and Mike Timoney – a virtuoso on the cordovox – all recorded with them; Peter Cowap teamed up with Gouldman to cut a trio of singles for Pye, and a fourth, under the pseudonym Grumble, for RCA; the Herman-less Hermits cut around 50 tracks over the course of a year, although only two of them ever saw the light of day;day; while the Hermit-less Herman, Peter Noone, also recorded a single with sever
on version of Timon singles year them reco single with
Gouldman, one of several sessions Mickey Most’s RAK label sent Strawberry’s way.
RAK label sent Str
“At that period of time, Strawberry Studios was doing everything and anything,” says Gouldman, “and it also was providing work for myself, Eric, and Kev and Lol as session musicians, we were the house band.”
tim was doin was
Comedians, nightclub acts, you name it, Strawberry would record it, but the real
45 onl all recorded De virtuoso ‘Whe Wayne Fontana The Alan
Broadway Danny Rose than rock ’n’ roll. weir
than rock roll.
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