10cc | uDiscover uDiscoverMusic 10cc As hugely inventive and successful as they were, 10cc can get overlooked in critics’ lists of acts that broke free from the moon-June rigidity of the pop format to bring a free wheeling sensibility to the charts. Indeed, asked to cite a pioneering British art rock act of the 1970s many would plumb for the more seriously minded Roxy Music , with perhaps Steve Harley’s Cockney Rebel coming a close second. But 10cc beat both bands hands down, if we can define success via chart statistics — 10cc scored three No.1 singles: ‘Rubber Bullets’ (1973), ‘I’m Not In Love’ (1975) and ‘Dreadlock Holiday’ (1978); and eight Top 10 hits between 1973 and 1977: ‘Donna’, ‘The Dean And I’, ‘The Wall Street Shuffle’, ‘Life Is A Minestrone’, ‘Art For Art’s Sake’, ‘I’m Mandy, Fly Me’, ‘The Things We Do For Love’ and ‘Good Morning Judge’.

There was substance behind their style and, following a modest start with their debut, 10cc (No.36), they had an impressive run on the UK album charts too with their next five LPs going Top 10 — Sheet Music (No.9), The Original Soundtrack (No.3), How Dare You ! (No.5), Deceptive Bends (No.3) and Bloody Tourists (No.3). Unusually, all four members were songwriters, singers, multi-instrumentals and producers, which accounts for the abundance of ideas and styles on 10cc’s records. There was a rich textured brilliance to their sound, and many of their greatest moments were mini pop symphonies, dedicated if not to God, as Brian Wilson might have preferred, then at least to Art. Purely for its own sake, of course. 10cc comprised Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme — all hailing from the hotbed of musical talent that was the Greater Manchester area. The quartet just didn’t land with their pop wizardry out of nowhere of course, and each member had paid his dues in the 1960s, often achieving considerable success.

Eric Stewart played guitar in Wayne Fontana and The Mindbenders. He co-wrote a couple of B-sides and assumed lead vocals for the post-Fontana ‘A Groovy Kind Of Love’, which hit No.2 on both sides of the Atlantic and sold a million copies. Graham Gouldman was the frontman for The Whirlwinds and The Mockingbirds. Establishing himself as a songwriter, he supplied a string of hits for other bands, including ‘For Your Love’, ‘Heart Full Of Soul’ and ‘Evil Hearted You’ for The Yardbirds; ‘Look Through Any Window’ and ‘Bus Stop’ for The Hollies; and successful songs for Herman’s Hermits. In 1968 he joined Eric Stewart in The Mindbenders. A year later, Gouldman accepted an invitation from Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz in New York to work as a staff writer at their bubblegum pop factory Super K Productions. It was here that the seed of 10cc’s musical vision was sown. Gouldman brought Stewart plus friends Kevin Godley and Lol Creme into the fold by suggesting that the Englishmen could create commercial nuggets cheaper than local New Yorkers.

By this time Gouldman and Stewart had invested their royalties into their own Strawberry Studios, based in Stockport, Greater Manchester, and so could keep recording costs to a minimum. Kasenetz and Katz agreed to the venture, block-booking Strawberry for three months in late 1969. Art school graduates Godley and Creme had known each other, and Gouldman, since the rock’n’roll Fifties, when they’d all rehearsed their various teenage bands at the local branch of the Jewish Lads Brigade — think The Smiths’ Salford Lads Club with an ethnic twist. In 1968 Godley and Creme recorded a single of psychedelic whimsy, ‘Seeing Things Green’, showcasing the Creme falsetto that became so familiar in 10cc, under the preposterous name Yellow Bellow Room Boom. A year later they cut ‘I’m Beside Myself’ for Giorgio Gomelski’s Marmalade label at Strawberry Studios, under the equally absurd moniker Frabjoy and The Runcible Spoon.

Once on the Super K payroll the Brits factory-farmed a healthy supply of pop froth, working in various different styles, forging the all-rounded pop template for 10cc. Godley: “It was really like a machine. Twenty tracks… We used to do the voices, everything… even the female backing vocals.” Their efforts resulted in a run of 45s that Kasenetz and Katz issued under several different names including Crazy Elephant, whose ‘Gimme Gimme Good Lovin’ ’ made No.12 both in the UK and US. When Gouldman returned to New York to work out his Super K contract the remaining trio continued at Strawberry, and released a single, ‘Neanderthal Man’, under the name Hotlegs. This song, too, became a huge hit, eventually selling two million copies worldwide and reaching No.2 in the UK. A Hotlegs album Thinks: School Stinks followed later in 1971. There were some false starts, though. The single, ‘Umbopo’, released as Doctor Father, did nothing, and neither did their cover of Paul Simon’s ‘Cecilia’ issued as The New Wave Band.

Graham Gouldman returned from New York for more session work at Strawberry, and the quartet backed Neil Sedaka on his comeback album Solitaire (1972) and its follow up The Tra-La Days Are Over (1973). The flat fee they received for their efforts convinced the band that they should be concentrating on their own material. They took their song ‘Donna’, inspired by Frank Zappa’s doo-wop pastiches and boasting a marvellous Creme falsetto, to pop entrepreneur Jonathan King, who singed the band to his label UK Records. King named them 10cc and ‘Donna’ shot to No.2 in Britain — followed by their first No.1, ‘Rubber Bullets’ Four fantastic albums followed, each brimming with pop invention and stylistic ingenuity, and 10cc became one of biggest acts of the Seventies, before the group divided in two, with Godley and Creme branching out as a duo, leaving Stewart and Gouldman to recruit new members.

The band’s breakthrough years came in an era of outrageous stage costumes but there was no glitter or glam for 10cc and their shau was all in their music — in the very showiness of their writing, arrangements, production, and performances. 10cc (1973) set out the band’s stall as clever purveyors of wit, pastiche and melody, with the sounds of the 1950s updated to the Seventies via futuristic guitar effects and studio flair. Three hit singles, ‘Donna’ and ‘Rubber Bullets’ and ‘The Dean And I’, sit alongside the one the didn’t sell, the death-disc skit ‘Johnny Don’t Do It’, plus highlights such as ‘The Hospital Song’ and the more straightforward rocker ‘Speed Kills’. They upped the ante with the adventurous and idiosyncratic Sheet Music (1974) that many, including themselves, consider their best album. There’s the No.10 hit ‘The Wall Street Shuffle’, the lesser hit ‘Silly Love’ and the non-hit ‘The Worst Band In The World’. Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson influences abound and the variety of styles widens to take in reggae.

‘Clockwork Creep’ is a bizarre conversation between a bomb and a jumbo jet, and the poignant ballad ‘Old Wild Men’ introduces Godley and Creme’s effects device for the guitar, the ‘Gizmo’. 10cc moved to Mercury Records for The Original Soundtrack in 1975 on the strength of one song, ‘I’m Not In Love’, a dreamy multi-layered masterpiece that took the pop symphony idea to new heights. It was their second No.1 and their biggest hit in the States, peaking at No.2. Opening track ‘Une Nuit À Paris’ is even more ambitious: a suite in three parts, nearly nine minutes long and filled with multiple characters, some singing in a French accent. The ‘Second Sitting For The Last Supper’ returns to the rock band format to deliver a lyrical tirade against organized religion, while lead single ‘Life Is A Minestrone’ fades in to recall the musical pulse of ‘Rubber Bullets’. How Dare You ! (1976) was the watershed 10cc album, the last one to feature the artier half of the partnership, Godley and Creme.

In musical terms, they left on a high, and the record is packed solid with melodic hooks, heady harmonies, crazy lyrical conceits and shifting arrangements — all the usual 10cc trademarks. Would be dictators get a platform on ‘I Wanna Rule The World’, while hit single ‘Art For Art’s Sake’ has a poke at the very same commercially minded artists they used to be themselves back in the Super K days. Its follow-up ‘I’m Mandy, Fly Me’ revisits that old chestnut, the airline disaster scenario, while the finale ‘Don’t Hang Up’ is a wry look at divorce. Unusually, the title track is an instrumental. Deceptive Bends (1977) was a strong album despite Godley and Creme’s absence, and yielded the hit singles ‘The Things We Do For Love’ and ‘Good Morning Judge’, plus the ballad ‘People In Love’, which didn’t chart. The approach was simpler and more direct than before, with fewer mid-song mood swings, but the overall result was still witty and well crafted. Highlights include the looking-for-love ‘Marriage Bureau Rendezvous’ and its aftermath ‘Honeymoon With B Troop’.

1978’s Bloody Tourists was a final fanfare of sorts before events overtook 10cc — punk and new wave was now sweeping away the old guard on the one hand, and on the other Eric Stewart sustained injuries in a car accident that kept him away from music for a while. It was their last high-charting album, and yielded the reggae-flavoured No.1 single ‘Dreadlock Holiday’, also their last big single. While there were plenty of ingenious lyrical narratives, the stripped-down approach of Deceptive Bends had set a new trend, and ‘Take These Chains’, ‘Last Night’ and ‘For You And I’ featured straightforward arrangements, while ‘Tokyo’ is, if anything, under-produced.

There are plenty of delights to be found on the band’s final five albums, Look Hear (1980), Ten Out Of 10 (1981), Windows In The Jungle (1983), … Meanwhile (1992), which enjoyed a brief reunion between the four original members, and Mirror Mirror (1995), but 10cc’s golden years were the 1970s, when they produced some of the finest, wonderfully progressive pop music to ever come out of the UK Words: Andy Davis 10CC - a short history - Wickham Festival · Share Presenting... Wickham Festival: August 3-6, 2017.

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Save £40 on earlybird season tickets now onsale at bargain rates. ... See MoreSee Less 2 weeks ago · 3rd July 2015 by Graham Hiley Among the most inventive and influential bands in the history of popular music, 10cc are one of the very few acts to have achieved commercial, critical and creative success in equal measure. Testament to 10cc’s ongoing appeal, the band can count a generation straddling array of fellow artists, everyone from Chrissie Hynde to The Feeling’s Dan Gillespie and Axl Rose to Sophie Ellis Bextor, among their many millions of fans. I’m Not In Love, co-written by Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart, features prominently in the soundtrack to the 2014 blockbuster film Guardians of the Galaxy, which grossed $635 million in its first two months in US cinemas and spawned a No 1 album. Meanwhile, a key element of the soundtrack to 2010’s Facebook feature film The Social Network is Dreadlock Holiday, which is also the Sky Sports cricket reports theme in Australia.

10CC are still going strong 10cc has sold more than 30 million albums around the world and the band’s longevity is testament to their timeless songs, and reflecting Gouldman’s status as one of the world’s leading songwriters, he was inducted into America’s Songwriter’s Hall of Fame at a ceremony in New York in June. Previous inductees include Noel Coward, Burt Bacharach, Neil Sedaka, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, Elton John and Sting. The band continues to traverse the globe and play countries as disparate as Iceland and South Africa, Latvia and Japan, as well as across Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Canada and the US. Following a 23-date UK tour in October-November, early 2015 will see the band play three concerts in Japan before a 12-date tour of major UK concert venues in February, when the first half of the show will feature the band performing the Sheet Music album in its entirety, with a special video contribution from Kevin Goidley. Gouldman attributes 10cc’s lasting appeal to the quality and individuality of the band’s songs.

“They don’t seem to date; they are original, we never followed any trend we simple wrote for our own pleasure. The fact that the songs are being played as often on the radio today as they ever were shows how true that is,” he says. 10cc ruled the pop world at a time – the 1970s – when the charts were dominated by some of the most creative and colourful artistes in pop history. Unlike David Bowie, Queen, Elton John or Rod Stewart – all of whom they stood shoulder-to-shoulder with for a decade – 10cc’s energies were not centred on image or celebrity-status, but on creating highly sophisticated rock masterworks with mainstream appeal. Early influences on the band included The Beatles and the Beach Boys, but their palate proved wide. Says Gouldman: “For me it was people like Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Jimmy Webb, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers. Eric [Stewart] was more rock ’n’ roll, the blues and R&B; while Kevin [Godley] and Lol [Creme] were into more artistic and avant-garde acts including Jacques Brel.

It’s what happened when we put all those things together that made 10cc.” The result was some of the greatest pop records of the 20th Century. From breakthrough hit Donna in 1972 to their final No 1, Dreadlock Holiday in 1978, via landmark releases including 1975 worldwide hit I’m Not In Love, 10cc stood for the kind of heightened pop sensibility achieved only by the very greatest music practitioners. As Rolling Stone magazine put it in 1975, ‘There is more going on in one 10cc song than on the last ten Yes albums.’ With hit song-writing credits with bands including the Yardbirds, Hollies and Herman’s Hermits under his belt, the early 1970s saw Gouldman and his compatriots reach new levels of creative endeavour. He spent time in New York writing for bubblegum kings Jerry Kazenetz and Jeff Katz., but fed up with being away from home, he returned to the UK to record the songs he had written Stateside with his friends at Strawberry Studios in Stockport.

Back in Manchester, Stewart, Godley and Creme had also been busy, with Stewart testing a new four-track recorder that lead to the recording of Neanderthal Man, a track that went on to enjoy 14 weeks in the UK charts in 1970, peaking at No 2. The band was called Hotlegs and comprised Godley, Creme, Stewart, and briefly Gouldman. In1972 Gouldman’s manager Harvey Lisberg (later to become 10cc’s manager) met Neil Sedaka, who was playing a residency at Batley Variety Club in Yorkshire. Sedaka’s career was in decline and Lisberg suggested he worked with the guys at Strawberry. The result was Sedaka’s hit comeback album Solitaire, produced by Gouldman, Stewart, Godley and Creme, with Stewart acting as engineer. “We all learned so much from those sessions. Neil’s sheer professionalism, musicianship and song-writing were inspiring,” says Gouldman. “We’d done a few tracks and we needed a B-side for Waterfall [a Gouldman/Stewart composition].

There was a possibility that it would come out on the Apple label, which we were very excited about, because any connection with the Beatles was great,” says Gouldman. A Godley and Creme song, Donna, was chosen. “We didn’t have a name for the band and weren’t bent on world domination or anything, but Donna made us sit up and notice ourselves, that we actually had something special.” And so 10cc was born, Donna became the A side and reached No 2 in the UK charts. Right from the start it was obvious they weren’t like other groups. All four could sing, were adept in the recording studio, and were seasoned musicians more interested in pleasing themselves than writing to a formula. Not long after Donna was released, Sedaka returned to Strawberry to record a second album, The Tra-La Days Are Over, with the same team, and his career took off again. 10cc comprised essentially two song-writing camps, Gouldman and Stewart, plus Godley and Creme, although they would sometimes intermingle. “Our principle was always the music,” says Gouldman, “whatever’s best for the song. That means if I can sing better than you on it, that’s what happens.

Or if Lol can play lead guitar better than you, he’ll do it. Consequently we had four singers in the band, four instrumentalists and four producers, plus Eric also engineered the sessions. “The other thing was whoever wrote the song, it kind of became the property of the four of us. You couldn’t say, ‘That song is crap, I don’t want anything to do with it’. What you had to say was, ‘I don’t like that part of the song, but I think we could make it better by doing this’. You always had to come up with something positive.” “It was the combination of all four of us that made the difference, not only in the song-writing, but in the production values as well,” says Gouldman. Whether it’s the eight-minute pop opera Une Nuit a Paris, or the No.1 hit pop masterpiece I’m Not In Love, both from The Original Soundtrack (1975) album, no two 10cc records sound the same, “A very important element,” explains Gouldman, “was we were completely self-contained. There wasn’t even a producer. If Eric was singing one of us would work the board.

We used to just give the tracks straight to the record company.” Indeed, they didn’t even have a recognisable frontman. “Eric was a very good-looking guy who took on the role quite often, and Lol was also brilliant out front. But you’d never know on the record who was playing guitar or even who was singing sometimes.” The first time 10cc played live, at the Isle of Man Casino in 1973, they were taken aback at the response. “We went onstage and girls started screaming! It was like, what the hell is going on? We imagined ourselves as professors of pop who were going to give a lecture on pop music, but it wasn’t like that at all.” The critical plaudits also rolled in. Rolling Stone calling The Original Soundtrack, “better than anything the Beach Boys have done of late”. The NME described I’m Not In Love as “a John Lennon song with a Paul McCartney vocal”. In an age where critics spent an inordinate amount of time trying to identify the new Beatles, 10cc increasingly seemed to fit the bill. “Because we existed in our own world, we didn’t need anyone to tell us how good we were.

We listened to the records and went, this is everything we want it to be and more.” Even after the astonishing success of I’m Not In Love, they refused to play the game and followed it up with the acidic Art For Art’s Sake – and scored another Top 5 hit. “Art for art’s sake, money for God’s sake, was something my late father used to say to me, although he wasn’t cynical like that at all – he was very artistic. But it’s such a lovely phrase. Eric had this riff and I just started singing that, and the song came.” The biggest surprise of all was the departure of Godley and Creme after their next album, How Dare You? “It was horrible,” Gouldman confesses. “It was an absolute disaster. Like getting a divorce.” Godley and Creme had become preoccupied with the Gizmotron – from the word ‘gizmo’ – a device they had invented which when applied could bring new sounds and textures out of an electric guitar. Obsessed with devising a showcase for it, they began recording a triple album together, Consequences.

Says a reflective Gouldman now, “Kev and I, who stayed quite close, have talked about this since and have decided what should have happened; he and Lol should have gone off and done their thing for a year or so, then allowed 10cc to resume. “But that’s just not how things were done in the ‘70s. No one had a year off. Plus I think the record company were probably expecting another album, tours were booked and so on.” Instead, Gouldman and Stewart continued as 10cc and scored more notable successes with their next two albums, Deceptive Bends (1977) – featuring their next worldwide hit single Things We Do For Love – and Bloody Tourists (1978), which spawned another international hit, Dreadlock Holiday. “We were on a mission to prove ourselves,” says Gouldman, “This wasn’t like a couple of guys leaving the band who just played their instruments. This was two of the producers going, two of the singers going, two of the songwriters going.

So it was a real 50 percent gone.” Ultimately, the split took its toll and when Stewart was badly injured in a car crash in 1979, the writing was on the wall. “It flattened me completely,” Stewart later recalled. “I damaged my left ear and 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 [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.” All four original members enjoyed very successful post-10cc careers. Godley and Creme continued as a partnership, recording their own hit records and becoming Grammy-winning video directors for acts including Ultravox, The Police, Duran Duran and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Stewart collaborated on three Paul McCartney albums in the 1980s and continues to record sporadically as a solo artiste, his most recent collection being Viva La Difference in 2009.

Meanwhile Gouldman spent the 1980s concentrating on recording soundtracks for films such as Farah Fawcett’s Sunburn and the American animation Animalympics. He also worked as a producer with The Ramones and Gilbert O’Sullivan. He then formed Wax with American songwriter Andrew ‘Lonely Boy’ Gold and had hits with Right Between The Eyes and Bridge To You Heart. There were two final Gouldman-Stewart directed 10cc albums in the ‘90s, the first … Meanwhile (1992), featured contributions from both Godley and Creme, while the last, Mirror Mirror (1995), despite featuring contributions from McCartney and Gold, was more a collection of Gouldman and Stewart solo songs. That same year, 10cc received a BMI citation for three million plays on US radio for I’m Not In Love (since risen to five million). This followed the BMI citation for two million plays (since risen to 3.5m) of Things We Do For Love, In 2002, the 30th anniversary of the band’s debut hit Donna, 10cc began to creep back into the national consciousness.

With Gouldman fronting a new touring band, a 28-date UK tour was followed by a series of one-off events across Europe. The band have continued to regularly tour the world ever since. 10CC with Graham Gouldman centre In 2006, Universal records released the TV-advertised, double CD 10cc: Greatest Hits … And More, and the following year national newspaper the Mail On Sunday produced a special 10-track, cover-mount Best of 10cc Live CD, distributing more than 2.4 million copies throughout the UK and Ireland. The paper reported that sales rose by 232,000 on the day of publication. For the band’s 40th anniversary year in 2012, Universal Records released a new five-CD box set entitled Tenology, featuring 80 tracks chosen by the four original and members. A world tour took 10cc as far and wide as Iceland and Australia, and saw them play London’s Royal Albert Hall for the first time. The landmark concert saw Kevin Godley guest on several numbers including a capella version of Donna.

After 50 concerts with 10cc that year, Gouldman decided to tour as an acoustic outfit, Heart Full of Songs, which included10cc’s Rick Fenn, Mick Wilson and Mike Stevens. Their set included hits Gouldman wrote for The Hollies, Herman’s Hermits, the Yardbirds and film soundtracks, along with material from his new solo album Love And Work. And in a triumphant end to 2013, 10cc joining Status Quo for a tour of UK arenas, including London’s The O2. This year has seen the band play New Zealand and a host of summer festivals across the UK and Europe, including the 60,000-capacity British Summer Time in London’s Hyde Park. “Year on year we get busier and busier. It’s great, we love touring and playing together and we get on really well. The audiences these days are very gratifying. You get the people you would expect, who grew up with 10cc, but you also get young kids who know the songs too,” says Gouldman.

With four decades of song-writing excellence and a crack band of musicians behind him Gouldman confidently promises, “This is as near as you’re ever going to get to hearing the perfect 10cc. Hit after hit after hit. It’s relentless. We show no mercy.” The live band’s line-up is: Graham Gouldman – bass, guitars, vocals Rick Fenn – lead guitar, vocals, bass Paul Burgess – drums, percussion Mick Wilson – vocals, percussion, guitar, keyboards Mike Stevens – keyboards, guitar, bass, sax, vocals Paul has worked with 10cc from the beginning and Rick joined the live band in the mid-‘70s. Mike is occasionally replaced by Keith Hayman, when Mike tours as musical director with Take That or Gary Barlow. Similarly, Mick is occasionally replaced by Iain Hornal, when Mick is otherwise engaged. 10cc – Top UK Chart Positions I’m Not In Love 1 Dreadlock Holiday 1 10cc Songs List Biography - Pictures - Pictures 2 - Wallpapers - Albums - Midis - All Songs - Links - Similar Artists - Concert Tickets - Music Videos 10cc are an English art rock and pop band.

Initially comprised of four musicians - Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme - who had written and recorded together for some three years, before assuming the "10cc" name in 1972 - two strong song-writing teams, injected sharp wit to lyrically-dextrous songs. Stewart and Gouldman were straight pop-song-writers, who created the band’s most accessible songs; Godley and Creme were the experimental half of 10cc, featuring an Art School sensibility and cinematic writing. 10cc Songs List You can sort the following table clicking on header columns. Title 10cc - uDiscover Germany uDiscover Germany BUY DIGGING DEEP... As hugely inventive and successful as they were, 10cc can get overlooked in critics’ lists of acts that broke free from the moon-June rigidity of the pop format to bring a free wheeling sensibility to the charts. Indeed, asked to cite a pioneering British art rock act of the 1970s many would plumb for the more seriously minded Roxy Music , with perhaps Steve Harley’s Cockney Rebel coming a close second.

But 10cc beat both bands hands down, if we can define success via chart statistics — 10cc scored three No.1 singles: ‘Rubber Bullets’ (1973), ‘I’m Not In Love’ (1975) and ‘Dreadlock Holiday’ (1978); and eight Top 10 hits between 1973 and 1977: ‘Donna’, ‘The Dean And I’, ‘The Wall Street Shuffle’, ‘Life Is A Minestrone’, ‘Art For Art’s Sake’, ‘I’m Mandy, Fly Me’, ‘The Things We Do For Love’ and ‘Good Morning Judge’. There was substance behind their style and, following a modest start with their debut, 10cc (No.36), they had an impressive run on the UK album charts too with their next five LPs going Top 10 — Sheet Music (No.9), The Original Soundtrack (No.3), How Dare You ! (No.5), Deceptive Bends (No.3) and Bloody Tourists (No.3).

Unusually, all four members were songwriters, singers, multi-instrumentals and producers, which accounts for the abundance of ideas and styles on 10cc’s records. There was a rich textured brilliance to their sound, and many of their greatest moments were mini pop symphonies, dedicated if not to God, as Brian Wilson might have preferred, then at least to Art. Purely for its own sake, of course. DIGGING EVEN DEEPER – Hier die ganze Biografie lesen! 10cc comprised Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme — all hailing from the hotbed of musical talent that was the Greater Manchester area. The quartet just didn’t land with their pop wizardry out of nowhere of course, and each member had paid his dues in the 1960s, often achieving considerable success. Eric Stewart played guitar in Wayne Fontana and The Mindbenders. He co-wrote a couple of B-sides and assumed lead vocals for the post-Fontana ‘A Groovy Kind Of Love’, which hit No.2 on both sides of the Atlantic and sold a million copies.

Graham Gouldman was the frontman for The Whirlwinds and The Mockingbirds. Establishing himself as a songwriter, he supplied a string of hits for other bands, including ‘For Your Love’, ‘Heart Full Of Soul’ and ‘Evil Hearted You’ for The Yardbirds; ‘Look Through Any Window’ and ‘Bus Stop’ for The Hollies; and successful songs for Herman’s Hermits. In 1968 he joined Eric Stewart in The Mindbenders. A year later, Gouldman accepted an invitation from Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz in New York to work as a staff writer at their bubblegum pop factory Super K Productions. It was here that the seed of 10cc’s musical vision was sown. Gouldman brought Stewart plus friends Kevin Godley and Lol Creme into the fold by suggesting that the Englishmen could create commercial nuggets cheaper than local New Yorkers. By this time Gouldman and Stewart had invested their royalties into their own Strawberry Studios, based in Stockport, Greater Manchester, and so could keep recording costs to a minimum. Kasenetz and Katz agreed to the venture, block-booking Strawberry for three months in late 1969.

Art school graduates Godley and Creme had known each other, and Gouldman, since the rock’n’roll Fifties, when they’d all rehearsed their various teenage bands at the local branch of the Jewish Lads Brigade — think The Smiths’ Salford Lads Club with an ethnic twist. In 1968 Godley and Creme recorded a single of psychedelic whimsy, ‘Seeing Things Green’, showcasing the Creme falsetto that became so familiar in 10cc, under the preposterous name Yellow Bellow Room Boom. A year later they cut ‘I’m Beside Myself’ for Giorgio Gomelski’s Marmalade label at Strawberry Studios, under the equally absurd moniker Frabjoy and The Runcible Spoon. Once on the Super K payroll the Brits factory-farmed a healthy supply of pop froth, working in various different styles, forging the all-rounded pop template for 10cc. Godley: “It was really like a machine.

Twenty tracks… We used to do the voices, everything… even the female backing vocals.” Their efforts resulted in a run of 45s that Kasenetz and Katz issued under several different names including Crazy Elephant, whose ‘Gimme Gimme Good Lovin’ ’ made No.12 both in the UK and US. When Gouldman returned to New York to work out his Super K contract the remaining trio continued at Strawberry, and released a single, ‘Neanderthal Man’, under the name Hotlegs. This song, too, became a huge hit, eventually selling two million copies worldwide and reaching No.2 in the UK. A Hotlegs album Thinks: School Stinks followed later in 1971. There were some false starts, though. The single, ‘Umbopo’, released as Doctor Father, did nothing, and neither did their cover of Paul Simon’s ‘Cecilia’ issued as The New Wave Band. Graham Gouldman returned from New York for more session work at Strawberry, and the quartet backed Neil Sedaka on his comeback album Solitaire (1972) and its follow up The Tra-La Days Are Over (1973).

The flat fee they received for their efforts convinced the band that they should be concentrating on their own material. They took their song ‘Donna’, inspired by Frank Zappa’s doo-wop pastiches and boasting a marvellous Creme falsetto, to pop entrepreneur Jonathan King, who singed the band to his label UK Records. King named them 10cc and ‘Donna’ shot to No.2 in Britain — followed by their first No.1, ‘Rubber Bullets’ Four fantastic albums followed, each brimming with pop invention and stylistic ingenuity, and 10cc became one of biggest acts of the Seventies, before the group divided in two, with Godley and Creme branching out as a duo, leaving Stewart and Gouldman to recruit new members. The band’s breakthrough years came in an era of outrageous stage costumes but there was no glitter or glam for 10cc and their shau was all in their music — in the very showiness of their writing, arrangements, production, and performances.

10cc (1973) set out the band’s stall as clever purveyors of wit, pastiche and melody, with the sounds of the 1950s updated to the Seventies via futuristic guitar effects and studio flair. Three hit singles, ‘Donna’ and ‘Rubber Bullets’ and ‘The Dean And I’, sit alongside the one the didn’t sell, the death-disc skit ‘Johnny Don’t Do It’, plus highlights such as ‘The Hospital Song’ and the more straightforward rocker ‘Speed Kills’. They upped the ante with the adventurous and idiosyncratic Sheet Music (1974) that many, including themselves, consider their best album. There’s the No.10 hit ‘The Wall Street Shuffle’, the lesser hit ‘Silly Love’ and the non-hit ‘The Worst Band In The World’. Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson influences abound and the variety of styles widens to take in reggae. ‘Clockwork Creep’ is a bizarre conversation between a bomb and a jumbo jet, and the poignant ballad ‘Old Wild Men’ introduces Godley and Creme’s effects device for the guitar, the ‘Gizmo’.

10cc moved to Mercury Records for The Original Soundtrack in 1975 on the strength of one song, ‘I’m Not In Love’, a dreamy multi-layered masterpiece that took the pop symphony idea to new heights. It was their second No.1 and their biggest hit in the States, peaking at No.2. Opening track ‘Une Nuit À Paris’ is even more ambitious: a suite in three parts, nearly nine minutes long and filled with multiple characters, some singing in a French accent. The ‘Second Sitting For The Last Supper’ returns to the rock band format to deliver a lyrical tirade against organized religion, while lead single ‘Life Is A Minestrone’ fades in to recall the musical pulse of ‘Rubber Bullets’. How Dare You ! (1976) was the watershed 10cc album, the last one to feature the artier half of the partnership, Godley and Creme. In musical terms, they left on a high, and the record is packed solid with melodic hooks, heady harmonies, crazy lyrical conceits and shifting arrangements — all the usual 10cc trademarks.

Would be dictators get a platform on ‘I Wanna Rule The World’, while hit single ‘Art For Art’s Sake’ has a poke at the very same commercially minded artists they used to be themselves back in the Super K days. Its follow-up ‘I’m Mandy, Fly Me’ revisits that old chestnut, the airline disaster scenario, while the finale ‘Don’t Hang Up’ is a wry look at divorce. Unusually, the title track is an instrumental. Deceptive Bends (1977) was a strong album despite Godley and Creme’s absence, and yielded the hit singles ‘The Things We Do For Love’ and ‘Good Morning Judge’, plus the ballad ‘People In Love’, which didn’t chart. The approach was simpler and more direct than before, with fewer mid-song mood swings, but the overall result was still witty and well crafted. Highlights include the looking-for-love ‘Marriage Bureau Rendezvous’ and its aftermath ‘Honeymoon With B Troop’.

1978’s Bloody Tourists was a final fanfare of sorts before events overtook 10cc — punk and new wave was now sweeping away the old guard on the one hand, and on the other Eric Stewart sustained injuries in a car accident that kept him away from music for a while. It was their last high-charting album, and yielded the reggae-flavoured No.1 single ‘Dreadlock Holiday’, also their last big single. While there were plenty of ingenious lyrical narratives, the stripped-down approach of Deceptive Bends had set a new trend, and ‘Take These Chains’, ‘Last Night’ and ‘For You And I’ featured straightforward arrangements, while ‘Tokyo’ is, if anything, under-produced.

There are plenty of delights to be found on the band’s final five albums, Look Hear (1980), Ten Out Of 10 (1981), Windows In The Jungle (1983), … Meanwhile (1992), which enjoyed a brief reunion between the four original members, and Mirror Mirror (1995), but 10cc’s golden years were the 1970s, when they produced some of the finest, wonderfully progressive pop music to ever come out of the UK Words: Andy Davis 10cc's Eric Stewart - MTV mtv Singer/songwriter and guitarist/keyboardist Eric Stewart was a significant member of the British art-pop band 10cc throughout all its permutations. Eric Stewart was born Jan. 20, 1945, in Manchester, England. In the early '60s he played in the British pop group Jerry Lee and the Staggerlees before being recruited for the Jets, a Manchester pub band, in 1963. Changing their name to Wayne Fontana's Mindbenders, the Jets began recording R&B covers on the Fontana label.

The following year, the Mindbenders had a British hit with a cover of Major Lance's "Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um." In 1965 the band was part of the British Invasion when its "Game of Love" hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Shortly thereafter, Fontana quit to go solo, leaving Stewart as the frontman. In 1966 the Mindbenders, without Fontana, had a #2 U.S. hit with "A Groovy Kind of Love." They enjoyed another hit with "Ashes to Ashes" and appeared in the popular coming-of-age film "To Sir With Love" (1967) before disbanding. Stewart and fellow Mindbender Graham Gouldman formed Hotlegs, who issued Thinks: School Stinks, featuring the UK hit "Neanderthal Man" (1970), and toured with the Moody Blues. The band expanded to include multi-instrumentalists and former art-school students Lol Crëme and Kevin Godley, who brought in "Donna," a song they had composed.

The foursome made the composition into a spoof of late-'50s teen-idol hits and shopped it to British entrepreneur Jonathan King. King signed the band to his UK Records and renamed them 10cc, a reference to the average metric volume of a male's ejaculate. Following the release of the band's eponymous 1973 debut album, "Donna" reached #2 on the UK chart, and "Rubber Bullets" topped it. "Dean and I"  based on Jerry Lee Lewis' "High School Confidential"  also made the top 10 that year. In 1974 the group sprouted more British hits ("Wall Street Shuffle," "Silly Love," "Life Is a Minestrone"), from that year's Sheet Music, and 10cc broke through to U.S. audiences with the #1 UK/#2 U.S. hit "I'm Not in Love" ( RealAudio excerpt). Godley and Crëme quit in 1976 to concentrate on video production. Stewart and Gouldman recorded as a duo, Deceptive Bends (1977), which yielded a top-five U.S.

hit with "The Things We Do for Love." The pair then added guitarist Rick Fenn, keyboardist Tony O'Malley and drummer Stuart Tosh for Bloody Tourists (1978), which spawned a #1 UK hit in the reggae-inspired "Dreadlock Holiday." Following tepid performances by LPs such as Look Hear? (1980), 10cc folded in the mid-'80s. In 1980 Stewart issued Girls: A Film Soundtrack by Eric Stewart, for a French movie. He worked with Alan Parsons and Sad Café and became a member of Paul McCartney's band. He co-wrote a number of songs on McCartney's Press to Play (1986). In 1985 Stewart produced Eyes of a Woman, a UK-only solo LP by ABBA's Agnetha Föltskog. In 1992 the original lineup of 10cc reunited for Meanwhile, but the band was down to Stewart and Gouldman again for Mirror Mirror (1995), their most recent studio LP. One year later, King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents: In Concert, featuring a 1975 performance, was released.

PolyGram released 10cc: The Singles in 1998. Other birthdays Thursday: Ron Townson (Fifth Dimension), 59; Rick Evans (Zager & Evans); 57; Ian Hill (Judas Priest), 48; Paul Stanley (Kiss), 48; Richard 23 (Front 242), 37; John Michael Montgomery, 35; Heather Small (M People), 35; Gary Barlow (Take That), 29; and William Powell (O'Jays), 19421977. 10CC discography and reviews Reviews 10cc biography Deriving their name from the metric total of semen ejaculated by the average male, the tongue-in-cheek British art-pop band 10cc comprised an all-star roster of Manchester-based musicians.

Vocalist/guitarist Graham Gouldman was a former member of The Mockingbirds and the author of hits for The Yardbirds, The Hollies, Herman's Hermits and Jeff Beck; singer/guitarist Eric Stewart was an alumn of Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders; and vocalists/multi-instrumentalists Kevin Godley and Lol Creme were both highly regarded studio players. All of them played on eccentric prog folk artist RAMASES' 1971 studio album "Space Hymns". Formed in 1970, 10cc began as a session unit dubbed Hotlegs; after establishing residence at Stewart's Strawberry Studios, Hotlegs scored a surprise U.K. smash hit with the single "Neanderthal Man," subsequently issuing an LP, "Thinks: School Times", and touring with The Moody Blues. After signing to Jonathan King's U.K. label and rechristening themselves 10cc (a name suggested by King himself), the group backed Neil Sedaka before recording 1972's "Donna," a sly satire of late-'50s doo-wop.

The single reached Number Two on the British charts, establishing not only a long-running string of major hits, but also the quartet's fondness for ironic and affectionate reclamations of musty pop styles. The follow-up, "Rubber Bullets," topped the charts in 1973, and both the subsequent single "The Dean and I" and a self-titled debut LP further solidified 10cc as a major force in British pop. While 1974's "Sheet Music" and singles, including the Brian Wilson-esque "Wall Street Shuffle," "Silly Love" and "Life Is a Minestrone" continued 10cc's dominance of the U.K. charts, they found the American market virtually impenetrable prior to the release of 1975's "I'm Not in Love," which topped the British charts and climbed as high as Number Two in the States. After 1975's "Original Soundtrack" and the next year's "How Dare You!", Godley and Creme left the band to focus on video production, as well as developing the 'Gizmo', a guitar modification device the duo invented.

In the wake of their departure, Gouldman and Stewart continued on alone, enlisting the aid of session men to record 1977's "Deceptive Bends", highlighted by the perennial "The Things We Do for Love." After recruiting guitarist Rick Fenn, keyboardist Tony O'Malley and drummer Stuart Tosh as full-time members, 10cc returned in 1978 with "Bloody Tourists", which yielded ...Deriving their name from the metric total of semen ejaculated by the average male, the tongue-in-cheek British art-pop band 10cc comprised an all-star roster of Manchester-based musicians. Vocalist/guitarist Graham Gouldman was a former member of The Mockingbirds and the author of hits for The Yardbirds, The Hollies, Herman's Hermits and Jeff Beck; singer/guitarist Eric Stewart was an alumn of Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders; and vocalists/multi-instrumentalists Kevin Godley and Lol Creme were both highly regarded studio players. All of them played on eccentric prog folk artist RAMASES' 1971 studio album "Space Hymns".

Formed in 1970, 10cc began as a session unit dubbed Hotlegs; after establishing residence at Stewart's Strawberry Studios, Hotlegs scored a surprise U.K. smash hit with the single "Neanderthal Man," subsequently issuing an LP, "Thinks: School Times", and touring with The Moody Blues. After signing to Jonathan King's U.K. label and rechristening themselves 10cc (a name suggested by King himself), the group backed Neil Sedaka before recording 1972's "Donna," a sly satire of late-'50s doo-wop. The single reached Number Two on the British charts, establishing not only a long-running string of major hits, but also the quartet's fondness for ironic and affectionate reclamations of musty pop styles. The follow-up, "Rubber Bullets," topped the charts in 1973, and both the subsequent single "The Dean and I" and a self-titled debut LP further solidified 10cc as a major force in British pop.

While 1974's "Sheet Music" and singles, including the Brian Wilson-esque "Wall Street Shuffle," "Silly Love" and "Life Is a Minestrone" continued 10cc's dominance of the U.K. charts, they found the American market virtually impenetrable prior to the release of 1975's "I'm Not in Love," which topped the British charts and climbed as high as Number Two in the States. After 1975's "Original Soundtrack" and the next year's "How Dare You!", Godley and Creme left the band to focus on video production, as well as developing the 'Gizmo', a guitar modification device the duo invented.

In the wake of their departure, Gouldman and Stewart continued on alone, enlisting the aid of session men to record 1977's "Deceptive Bends", highlighted by the perennial "The Things We Do for Love." After recruiting guitarist Rick Fenn, keyboardist Tony O'Malley and drummer Stuart Tosh as full-time members, 10cc returned in 1978 with "Bloody Tourists", which yielded the number one reggae nod "Dreadlock Holiday." Following a series of unsuccessful efforts, including 1980's "Look Hear?", 1981's "10 Out of 10" and 1983's "Window in the Jungle", the group disbanded; while Stewart produced Sad Caf� and worked with Paul McCartney, and Gouldman supervised recordings for The Ramones and Gilbert O'Sullivan before joining Andrew Gold in the duo Wax. In 1992, the original lineup of 10cc reunited for the LP "Meanwhile", while only Gouldman and Stewart remained for 1993's "Mirror Mirror".

Why this artist must be listed in : porogressive pop 10CC | The Ultimate Rock and Pop Music History Website - ROKPOOL Click an Image to Buy Album Biography: Deriving their name from the metric total of semen ejaculated by the average male, the tongue-in-cheek British art-pop band 10cc comprised an all-star roster of Manchester-based musicians: vocalist/guitarist Graham Gouldman was a former member of the Mockingbirds and the author of hits for the Yardbirds , the Hollies , Herman's Hermits and Jeff Beck ; singer/guitarist Eric Stewart was an alum of Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders; and vocalists/multi-instrumentalists Kevin Godley and Lol Creme were both highly regarded studio players. Formed in 1970, 10cc began as a session unit dubbed Hotlegs; after establishing residence at Stewart's Strawberry Studios, Hotlegs scored a surprise U.K. smash with the single "Neanderthal Man," subsequently issuing an LP, Thinks: School Times and touring with the Moody Blues . After signing to Jonathan King's U.K.

label and rechristening themselves 10cc (a name suggested by King himself), the group backed Neil Sedaka before recording 1972's "Donna," a sly satire of late-'50s doo wop. The single reached the number two position on the British charts, establishing not only a long-running string of major hits, but also the quartet's fondness for ironic and affectionate reclamations of musty pop styles. The follow-up, "Rubber Bullets," topped the charts in 1973, and both the subsequent single "The Dean and I" (a nostalgic look at academia recalling Jerry Lee Lewis ’ "High School Confidential") and an eponymously titled debut LP further solidified 10cc as a major force in British pop. While 1974's Sheet Music and singles, including the Brian Wilson -esque "Wall Street Shuffle," "Silly Love" and "Life Is a Minestrone" continued 10cc's dominance of the U.K.

charts, they found the American market virtually impenetrable prior to the release of 1975's "I'm Not in Love," which topped the charts at home and climbed as high as number two in the States. After 1975's Original Soundtrack and the next year's How Dare You!, Godley and Creme exited to focus on video production as well as developing the Gizmo, a guitar modification device the duo invented.

In the wake of their departure, Gouldman and Stewart continued on alone, enlisting the aid of session men to record 1977's Deceptive Bends, highlighted by the perennial "The Things We Do for Love." After recruiting guitarist Rick Fenn, keyboardist Tony O’Malley and drummer Stuart Tosh as full-time members, 10cc returned in 1978 with Bloody Tourists, which yielded the number one reggae nod "Dreadlock Holiday." Following a series of unsuccessful efforts, including 1980s Look Hear?, 1981's 10 Out of 10 and 1983's Window in the Jungle, the group disbanded; while Stewart produced Sad Cafe and worked with Paul McCartney , Gouldman supervised recordings for the Ramones and Gilbert O’Sullivan before joining Andrew Gold in the duo Wax. In 1992, the original line-up of 10cc reunited for the LP Meanwhile, while only Gouldman and Stewart remained for 1993's Mirror Mirror.

~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide For The Record Members include Paul Burgess (unofficially joined group as tour drummer, 1973), drums; LolCrème (born Lawrence Crème on September 19, 1947, in Manchester, England; left group, 1976), guitar, vocals; Rick Fenn (joined group, 1977), guitar;Kevin Godley (born on October 7, 1945; left group, 1976), drums, vocals; Graham Gouldman (born on May 10, 1945, in Manchester, England), bass, vocals; Tony O'Malley (joined group, 1977), keyboards; Duncan Mackay (joined group, 1978), keyboards; Stephen Pigott (joined group for tour, 1993), keyboards; Eric Stewart (born January 20, 1945, in Manchester, England), guitar, vocals; Stuart Tosh (joined group, 1977), drums, vocals; Gary Wallis (joined group for tour, 1993), drums.

Stewart and Gouldman became members of Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, 1966; Stewart, Godley, and Crème form band Hotlegs and record number-two U.K. single "Neanderthal Man" on Fontana Label, 1970; Gouldman joined Hotlegs for tour supporting Moody Blues, 1970; Hotlegs used as studio and backup band for Neil Sedaka's Solitaire album and subsequent tour, 1971; 10cc signed by Jonathon King's U.K.

label, 1972; first single, "Donna," charted at number two in U.K., 1972; released debut album, 10cc, 1973; "Rubber Bullets" single reached number one in U.K., 1973; released Sheet Music, 1974; released Original Soundtrack on Mercury label, 1975; released How Dare You!, 1976; Crème and Godley left group to pursue career as musical duo and market Gizmo musical instrument, 1976; Stewart and Gouldman recorded Deceptive Bends with hit single "The Things We Do for Love," 1977; Stewart and Gouldman hired Paul Burgess, Rick Fenn, Tony O'Malley, and Stuart Tosh, 1977; Duncan Mackay hired as keyboardist, 1978; released Bloody Tourist, 1978; original lineup of Crème, Godley, Stewart, and Gouldman reunite for album …Meanwhile, 1992; Stewart and Gouldman re-formed 10cc without Godley and Crème for album Mirror Mirror and Japanese tour,

 1993.

The singles were collected on the group's 1973 self-titled first album, a recording that, according to Jonathon King in the liner notes for the reissue of their first two albums, "made many converts. They were literate, witty, tongue in cheek but musically superb. At that stage they reflected the past magic of groups like the Beach Boys yet added a whole new lyrical dimension of their own." 10cc toured to support the first album, appearing at the Isle of Man in August of 1973 with drum support from Paul Burgess. 10cc's second album, Sheet Music, was considered another step forward for the group in terms of artistic growth. Singles such as "Wall Street Shuffle" and "Silly Love" increased the band's popularity, while the song "Worst Band in the World" was refused airplay for its cynical portrayal of rock stardom and its hedonistic urges. The album is often considered a classic of the early 1970s in terms of production and songwriting. According to King: "This album was, and is, I still believe, a pop classic.

It contains incredible brightness and sparkle which emerged effortlessly, almost without trying." Following the first two albums, 10cc failed to capitalize on the overwhelming positive reviews they had received from the American rock press. They abandoned UK Records and signed with Mercury/Phonogram, releasing Original Soundtrack in 1975. Featuring the Stewart and Gouldman composition "I'm Not in Love," the album became a major American hit. According to Stewart, the song involved 16 recordings each of three different voices, creating an eerie production quality that serves as an ironic commentary on the lyrics. The group's fourth album, How Dare You!, contained the modestly successful singles "I'm Mandy Fly Me" and "Art for Art's Sake." Declaring that the "music is so blazingly bright, the songs so brashly witty, and the effect so cumulative" in a Phonograph Record review, critic Bud Scoppa noted: "Every song on How Dare You! is gem-hard, multi-faceted, and informed by some delicious irony….

The group is all the more impressive because—unlike Beefheart or Steely Dan—it holds itself rigidly within the stylistic parameters of pop." Source: artistdirect This information is provided as a brief overview and not as a definitive guide, there are other sources on the net for that. If however you have a story or information that is not generally known we would love to hear from you. Content@rokpool.com Why Not Also Check Out:

Question: Which Manchester pop group had a 1978 Noel single hit with "Dreadlock Holiday'?
Answer: 10cc