Latest news with #10cc
BBC News
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
The whispering woman behind 10cc's I'm Not In Love
BBC "Be quiet - big boys don't cry... big boys don't cry ... big boys don't cry!" Those whispered words are, of course, an essential part of 10cc's best-known hit single, 1970s pop masterpiece I'm Not In Love which was recently reprised by two of the band - Kevin Godley and Graham Gouldman - in a session for BBC Radio Two's Piano Room. Now, 50 years since the record's release, the woman who delivered those words can still scarcely believe her 15 seconds of fame. It all began when receptionist and secretary Cathy Redfern answered the phone at Stockport's Strawberry Studios, which were part-owned by the critically acclaimed Mancunian band. She was blissfully unaware drummer Kevin Godley felt the "middle eight" section was lacking a certain something in Eric Stewart's song about his wife not being happy with him for hardly ever saying he loved her. The band had added layers of overdubbed vocals and haunting instrumentalism to the song. Godley was whispering the line "Be quiet - big boys don't cry" in the control room when Cathy popped in to deliver a message. The then 19-year-old had only been working at the studios for about a year and did not want to disturb the band. However, she knew she had to pass on a message. She recalled: "I could see they were very busy, so I just went to the door and whispered to Eric: 'There's a phone call for you.' "They just said 'That's it." Impressed by the tone of her spoken voice, the band immediately asked her to replace Godley in committing them to tape. "I immediately said no way," said Cathy, who is now known by her married name of Warren. She said she remembered thinking: "I can't sing." It turns out the band were very persuasive, however. She said guitarist Lol Creme "put me over his shoulder and carried me back to the studio". Cathy added: "Kevin Godley came into the studio with me and would tap me on the shoulder when they wanted me to speak - I managed to do it in around three to four takes." At the time, she did not really think much of it, other than a brief distraction from her day job. All that changed, though, when the song hit number one and 10cc performed it on BBC One's Top Of The Pops. Looking back, she told the BBC: "It is a fabulous song. I never get tired of hearing it even now. It just stops you in your tracks really. "I never thought I would be hearing it 50 years later." The tune can also turn up in some unexpected places, she said. "It has followed me wherever I go. One time, I was returning from a family holiday in Greece when it started as we boarded the plane." Cathy Warren Kudos for her role in pop history seems to have skipped a generation, though, since her children were not especially impressed by their mum's exploits. Cathy said: "My grandson is really impressed, though, because his teacher is a massive 10cc fan." She said she had fond memories of her time at Strawberry Studios. Cathy said the band viewed her as their "kid sister". "They really looked after me," she said. "It was a great time." So many big name acts recorded at Strawberry Studios, which have been dubbed the Abbey Road of the North. Was Cathy star-struck? "Not really," she replied. "As it was just my job. The nearest I came was when I worked for the band when they played Knebworth. "Eric said to me 'I have a job for you which I think you are going to like - can you look after Paul McCartney for two hours?'" She recalled: "We had lunch and he was a really lovely man. I was really interested in what he had to say, but he was really interested in what I did... especially what I did for I'm Not In Love." Her more tangible memory of the time is a silver disc which the band gave her in recognition of the crucial role she played in their most famous song. "That was just typical of them," she said. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on BBC Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram, and watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer Stockport
BBC News
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Strawberry Studios: Gig and album celebrate 'Abbey Road of north'
A special gig celebrating the recording studio where 10cc, The Smiths and Joy Division recorded their music is taking place Studios, which has been described as "the Abbey Road of the north", started out as Inter-City Studios in 1967, but was renamed after Beatles song, Strawberry Fields gig at Stockport Plaza pays homage to the cradle of Manchester music and will feature cover versions of the city's pop anthems by local bands, plus guest appearances from Peter Hook of Joy Division and New Order, Clint Boon of Inspiral Carpets and Andy Couzens, a founder member of The Stone Roses.A vinyl album, Strawberry Studios Forever, is also being released. Also lined up at the gig are The Lottery Winners who will perform two songs by The Smiths. "It's hard to imagine how Manchester might have been without Strawberry Studios," Boon, who will be singing Solitaire, said. The comeback hit was written by US 60s legend Neil Sedaka and recorded in Stockport in the early 1970s."It was pioneering - there was nothing like it outside of London," he Barratt, the man behind the album and gig, which highlights Stockport's musical pedigree worked with his ex-wife Rosemary, a musical journalist, to create The Stockport Music Story project. "It was the Abbey Road of the north," he said, referencing the London recording studio where The Beatles recorded many of their Barratt said: "It was affordable with the latest sophisticated technology which meant fledgling bands like Joy Division were able to record - it was why Martin Pannett was able to create the sound for the band's album Unknown Pleasures."Set up in 1967 in a 20 sq ft (6 sq m) room above a record store it was initially called Inter-City Studios but after Peter Tattersall bought it for about £500 and Eric Stewart, of The Mindbenders and 10cc, became a partner, it was renamed Strawberry Recording Studios. "We were having trouble thinking of a name when Eric suddenly thought of his favourite Beatles song - Strawberry Fields forever," Tattersall also produced and recorded the novelty hit There's No-One Quite Like Grandma, by local children from the St Winifred's RC School choir where his own children December 1980 it knocked John Lennon off the number one slot as the UK's best selling single of the year with 980,000 copies sold beating The Police and Barbara Streisand. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on BBC Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram, and watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer.
Telegraph
14-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
10cc: ‘One guy told me that I'm Not in Love destroyed his marriage'
Graham Gouldman is remembering a review of 10cc's 1975 number one hit I'm Not in Love. 'Like a turd floating down a river of s---. Or something along those lines,' he chuckles. Whoever wrote that critique, however, is a voice in the wilderness. The art rockers broke new ground with this six-minute piece of shimmeringly ethereal pop that has become one of the best-loved songs of all time, and is now being re-released as a single for Valentine's Day. It is 10cc's Bohemian Rhapsody, or their Life On Mars? It's the one song they will always be known for, whether they like it or not. 'It is a real shame, because we did so many great things that were so different,' says the 78-year-old who is joined, via Zoom, by ex-bandmate Kevin Godley, 79, from his home near Dublin. 'I can't get away from it,' shrugs Godley. 'People come up to you and you know what they're going to say, that it reminds them of their first relationship or the love of their life. Although I met this guy who said it broke up his marriage. Someone told me that Bryan Ferry was driving when he heard it on the radio and pulled over to listen to it. He thought it was the most extraordinary thing he'd heard for ages.' 'I met Steve Davis, the snooker player,' adds Gouldman, rather less glamorously, 'and he said he nearly crashed his car because he was so enamoured with it.' 10cc were formed by Gouldman and Godley, along with Lol Creme and Eric Stewart, out of the ashes of a band called Hotlegs who scored a hit with the experimental Neanderthal Man in 1970. All four were musicians and songwriters, with no obvious frontman – something which helped define them. A string of hits followed, including the number-one Rubber Bullets, before I'm Not in Love, which was written by Stewart and Gouldman and took several days to complete. 'It was exhausting and boring as s---,' says Godley. Though the record company thought it too long, and the band didn't know what to make of it, everyone seemed to think they had a hit on their hands. They were right. Critics (generally) raved, using words like 'soaring', 'lush' and 'beautiful', and record buyers agreed. Within weeks of its release in May it was number one and stayed at the top of the hit parade for two weeks. It also became a worldwide smash, enabling them to discover that holy grail of pop, breaking America. Suddenly, their previously hallowed art-school credentials were misunderstood. 'We supported Slade, God!' eyerolls Godley. 'I mean, they're great, but what the f--- were we doing? We were from another universe,' he says. Despite the success of both the song and the album from which it was taken (The Original Soundtrack), Godley and Creme departed the following year to undertake a project around the Gizmo (a machine that enabled an electric guitar to mimic orchestral instruments), which the pair invented. While they originally intended to return to 10cc, it never happened. 'Maybe it's a very northern thing,' says Godley, reflecting on the attitude of 10cc's remaining members. ''[It was like] You're either in the group, or you're out of the group, lads.' 'But things were getting a little bit tedious anyway, and we weren't on the same musical path as much as we had been. There were differences of opinion.' 'Things changed dramatically afterwards,' explains Gouldman. 'We'd lost half our creative team, but we had commercial success. Kevin and I have talked about this quite a lot, and we could have handled things better. A shame, a real shame. I think we could have gone on to do much more.' Godley and Creme became a successful pop duo and video producers, while Gouldman and Stewart had more hits and reached number one again with Dreadlock Holiday in 1978, a song which is considered a little problematic today. Based partly on Gouldman's experience while on holiday in Barbados, it deals with a white man running into trouble with a group of locals. The song is now often considered stereotypical in its depiction of African-Caribbeans. 'People misunderstand it,' says Gouldman patiently. 'Basically it's about a white person trying to emulate West Indian cool. But yes, listening to the lyrics now, I'm surprised it is still played on the radio. But no West Indian person that I've met has ever said anything negative about it.' Along with Creme, the pair were born into Jewish families, Gouldman in Salford and Godley in Prestwich, and though Stewart is not Jewish, they are often described as the most successful Jewish band in UK history. 'We used to refer to ourselves as three yids and a yok,' laughs Gouldman. But they deny ever experiencing any antisemitism. 'I think because we're in the music business – and I'm not saying it wouldn't happen today – but I've never come across antisemitism throughout all my time in the industry,' he says. 'Musicians tend to be very accepting – we're artists, darling! Although, of course, our Jewishness affects who we are and what we created.' Godley agrees: 'I don't think of myself as Jewish. I think of myself as Jew-ish. There's a distinction. It never really occurred to me. 'My parents kept a kosher home,' recalls Gouldman. 'I used to go to synagogue with my dad. I got barmitzvahed, and then that gradually faded out, as it does with all Jewish boys. You get other interests, if you know what I mean… 'I didn't really care for any of it,' says Godley. 'My religion was art and music. I didn't give a damn about what I was.' 10cc fizzled out as an entity in 1983, but both Gouldman and Godley still make music, and the band has reunited briefly in the past. But could 10cc ever properly reform? 'No, no,' says Godley. 'Graham and I have worked together. We did briefly feel the love for about eight hours, and then it was gone.' 'But,' Gouldman quickly qualifies, 'I'm really pleased that out of the split we retained a really nice artistic and personal relationship.' Neither, however, remain in touch with Creme or Stewart. Godley and Creme's partnership ended at the end of the 1980s, while Gouldman and Stewart's relationship broke down soon afterwards – though Godley did bump into Creme a few years ago and it was all very cordial. Despite three number one singles and five top 10 albums, 10cc are rarely mentioned with the same hushed reverence as other big 1970s bands. Gouldman thinks he knows why: 'We didn't have a front man. Whoever sang the song the best got the job. There was less of an identity in that way.' Godley agrees: 'Making music videos brought home how important that visual component is, and we didn't have it. Queen, Roxy, Bowie were all incredibly visual. We never looked completely at home. We were just four guys.' The influence of 10cc, however, can still be felt. 'I meet lots of bands who say we were a massive influence on what they do, The Feeling for one,' says Gouldman. 'We've inspired people to be a bit more adventurous.' And then there's that song which we are still talking about five decades later. 'I think we can be proud of it,' beams Gouldman. 'Very much so,' sighs Godley. 'I just wish I'd written it.'
