I’m back. This time with Mike Oldfield, an underrated guitarist who is best known for his composition Tubular Bells, which launched his career and that of Sir Richard Branson. Branson had just started his label “Virgin”, so-named to reflect his lack of experience in the recording industry and the first artiste he signed was Mike Oldfield, whose Tubular Bells had been repeatedly rejected by many record labels. The record went on to sell millions and achieved gold status in the US with Oldfield receiving a Grammy for best instrumental composition in 1975.

According to wikipedia:

“Mike Oldfield played most of the instruments on the album … often recording them one at a time and layering the recordings to create the finished work. Many of his subsequent albums feature this technique. Though fairly common in the music industry now, at the time of the production of Tubular Bells not many musicians made use of it, preferring multi-musician “session” recordings.”

The opening theme of Tubular Bells also made it into the soundtrack of The Exorcist.

This is what Guitar Player had to say about Mike Oldfield:

“Oldfield’s prowess as a highly innovative guitarist is often overlooked. For example, he created a singular overdriven sound by routing his mid-50s Les Paul Junior through a convuluted signal chain that included a treble booster, a battery-powered Vox amp, a Teac reel-to-reel, and multiple graphic EQs, resulting in both super-mellow distortion and “feedback harmonics.” On his 1999 release, Guitars, Oldfield use the guitar as the course of all sounds – including percussion.”

My uncle gave me the Tubular Bells cd when I was 14. (What kind of uncle gives his nephew the soundtrack to the Exorcist??? A very cool uncle!) I couldn’t appreciate it then but I shared it with many of my friends, including the muser, who loved it so much that he became a Mike Oldfield fan and went on to buy several of his cds. At that time, I couldn’t understand what was the big deal and I eventually sold or gave away that cd after listening to it in its entirety several times.

They say it takes time to cook potatoes. Well, I’ve finally had an epiphany 16 years later. I love Tubular Bells!

Check out the videos below. I have only posted 3 videos from the entire series, which can be found at youtube. See also this excellent video.

Montreux 1981 – Tubular Bells part 1a

Tubular Bells part 1b

Tubular Bells part 1c