10cc was composed of four musicians who also wrote their own songs as well
as engineered them. Known for witty "art pop", the band lasted long enough to
become legends in the music world.
Graham Gouldman, the most famous song writer of the bunch, also played
in one version of Wayne Fontana's Mindbenders (named after a British sci-fi flick).
He wrote some of the greatest hits of the sixties, titles such as For Your Love,
Evil Hearted You and Heart Full of Soul, recorded by the Yardbirds, Bus Stop and
Look Through Any Window, recorded by The Hollies, and No Milk Today, recorded by
Herman's Hermits.
In 1970, Gouldman formed the group Hotlegs. This was a group in name only,
hardly ever touring. The other members were Lol Creme, Kevin Godley and Eric
Stewart. Stewart was part owner of a recording studio in Manchester called
Strawberry Studios, and Hotlegs recorded all their music there. In late 1970,
Hotlegs had a big British pop hit called Neanderthal Man. Stewart had known
Gouldman in The Mindbenders. When Wayne Fontana left the group, Stewart took
over as lead singer. Godley and Creme knew each other from school and played
on some sessions at Strawberry.
When Hotlegs couldn't score another hit (although they did one tour in support
of Neanderthal Man with The Moody Blues), they began to work on demos at
Strawberry Studios. The Godley-Creme song Donna which was a satire of late-fifties
teen hits became one of the songs that got attention from British impresario
Jonathan King. King renamed the band 10cc (the name derives from the amount of
semen ejaculated by the average male). When released as a single on Mercury in
1972, Donna climbed to number 2 on the British pop chart. Rubber Bullets followed
in 1973 and the group released two hit albums before signing with Polygram in 1975.
Although the albums were not big hits in America, FM Radio played the heck out of
them. 10cc became one of the most critically acclaimed bands in the world. Although
it has been many years since the original band broke up, the albums remain as
classics. - Steve Hoffman
Let Me Begin At The Beginning: This disc is a scrapbook of 10cc's first
two albums, recorded over a period of two happy years. The music dates from
the day a tape of a record no one thought would be a hit was brought to me
in my Soho Square office. "Fabulous" said I, "It's a smash! Tell the boys
I'll give them a name in the morning." That night I had a dream, and 10cc
were christened.
I won't pretend it was always an easy road. After Donna soared to #2,
one of their finest tracks - Johnny Don't Do It - flopped. But thanks to the
British television show "Top of the Pops", Rubber Bullets, closely followed by
The Dean and I set all that to rights giving them their first #1 and they were
an established, hit working band, gaining both sales popularity and critical
acclaim. Their first album "10cc" 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.
With "Sheet Music" another pinacle was conquered. The Wall Street Shuffle
and Silly Love both became substantial Top 30 British hit records. This album
was, and is, I still believe, a pop classic. It contains incredible brightness
and sparkle which emerged effortlessly, almost without trying. They excelled
themselves - they were brilliant and you loved it. The musical economy they
had acquired was always there - they precised their skill. Guitar solos said
it all in thirty seconds. Lyrics were never pretentious, facetious or absurd
unless they satirized another style. Here you had pop music ahead of its time,
subtle, clever, understated; no "heavy" lyrics, no flippancy or cynicism; they
were not like any other band, their talent was unique. With "Sheet Music" they
began to come to the attention of the American public.
At this stage I intend to digress and give you all an interesting lecture on
the state of music in America, with some details of how records are broken here.
Despite some past success in my early youth as an 18 year old boy wonder in the
Everyone's Gone to the Moon mid-sixties, I'd tended to desert U.S. shores for the
smaller waters of my own British home. However, sales are so much greater in the
states that I felt my record label had to be represented in both countries.
Launching in America proved a massively expensive operation, and I soon came to
realize the importance of building the image of a band. I was lucky with 10cc in
that - even if we were three years ahead of public taste - we managed to obtain the
support of almost all the media in our crusade. With the "Sheet Music" album
release we got unanimous rave reviews from all press critics and blanket airplay
coverage from the FM radio. I believed that The Wall Street Shuffle was an
American smash and my feelings were underlined by a great rumble of radio activity
that began on the disc here in the states. America is a marvelous country for
establishing talent because you can "prove" a record or artist in one area and the
"spread" your success nationally. However, for some reason we couldn't spread The
Wall Street Shuffle. Perhaps the timing wasn't right. I've suffered for years with
bad timing - in 1967 I discovered and named a band "Genesis" and it's taken them
many years to achieve fame and glory. In 1971 I had a huge British hit with a
"grunted" arrangement of a song called Hooked on a Feeling which died in America
until an identical cover of it went #1 three years later. So, yet again, The Wall
Street Shuffle wasn't right for U.S.A. 1974.
10cc had stood the test of time. To those of you who believed early in the
group - thank you. We had a hard core of support for their music, especially from
critics, music directors and disc jockeys. I am proud to have discovered,
nurtured and believed in 10cc. The effort that was spent bringing them to your
attention was as much a public service as a selfish investment. - Jonathan King
[Transcribed identically; factual, punctuation and grammatical mistakes intact.]
