Platinum
Release Date: November 23, 1979
Location: Electric Lady and Blue Rock USA; Througham, Denham and The Manor UK. Mixed at Air Studios.
1. Part One: Airborne 5:06
2. Part Two: Platinum 6:03
3. Part Three: Charleston 3:17
4. Part Four: North Star/Platinum Finale 4:43
5. Woodhenge 4:06
6. Sally 5:00
7. Punkadiddle 4:56
8. I Got Rhythm 4:40
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Mike Oldfield - Electric & Acoustic Guitars; Piano & synthesizer; Vibraphone & Marimbas; & Vocals
Pierre Moerlen - Drums (also Vibraphone)
Alan Schwwartzberg & Maurice Pert - Drums
Niel Jason, Hansford Rowe, Francisco Centeno - Bass
Nicko Ramsden & Peter Lemer - Keyboards
Sally Cooper - Tubular Bells
Horns arranged by Peter Gordon & Michael Riesman
Vocals arranged by David Bedford
Vocals on 'I Got rhytmn' by Wendy Roberts
Congas: Demalza
Engineered by Kurt Munkacsi & Tom Newman
Assistant Engineers - Richard Manwaring & Renate Blauel
Recorded at Electric Lady & Blue Rock USA; Througham, Denham, & The Manor U.K.
Mixed at Air Studios
Produced by Tom Newman
Cover by Trevor Key |
Notes
'Sally' was a song about Mike's feelings for his girlfriend Sally Cooper. Sung by Mike and Nico Ramsden, it contained the chorus "Sally, I'm just a gorilla, I'll say I'll love you ever more/Even an ape from Manila couldn't stop me knocking on your door". On hearing this, Virgin boss Richard Branson took an instant disliking to the song and demanded that it should be removed from the album, to be replaced by 'Into Wonderland' sung by Wendy Roberts (although when interviewed by David Porter in 1995, Wendy Roberts said she thought that the track which she recorded was called Sally, and knew nothing of what had gone on with the replacing of the original song). Some copies had already been pressed, so the early pressings of the LP contain the song Sally. All the rest contain Into Wonderland, although the album artwork was never updated, so the labels still say Sally (as do the CDs I've seen). The song contains various musical links with Punkadiddle. Some people with the original album feel that 'Sally' fits much better into the album than its replacement.
For the song, Mike asked producer and engineer Tom Newman to disguise the voices of him and Nico Ramsden. Tom applied what's now known as 'telephonic' EQ (equalisation) to their voices. That is, he cut the bass and boosted the mid-range (called telephonic because it sounds a bit like it's coming down a telephone). Mike's ideas of disguising his voice continued through his early 80s albums, with his use of vocoders and other electronic gadgetry.
Punkadiddle was Mike's answer to the punk movement, the emergence of which had escaped him while he'd been in retreat recording Incantations. Mike was not at all impressed with punk music, not least because it seriously dented his record sales (indeed, Virgin Records' signing of punk bands while failing to promote Mike's albums was to be the cause of a great rift between him and the record company). Mike said at one point that he felt that punk rock made fun of music, so perhaps Punkadiddle was Mike's idea of having music make fun of punk rock.
Kurt Munkacsi worked as engineer on many Philip Glass albums. Mike's choosing him perhaps came from an interest in bringing a Philip Glass influence to the album, with Mike featuring Glass's 'North Star' as part of 'Platinum'.
Renate Blauel was one of the in-house engineers at Air Studios in London. Her other claim to fame is as one time wife of Elton John.
An altered form of the album was released in the USA as 'Airborn', the difference being that Woodhenge was replaced by the track Guilty, a disco style tune based on the same note pattern as Incantations, which was released as a single at around the same time as that album. Similarly to parts of Platinum, Guilty was recorded in New York using session musicians.
© Richard Carter 2003
Personnel
| ▸ | Peter Gordon (arranger) | |
| | ▸ | Michael Riesman (arranger) | | A composer and arranger who worked with Philip Glass.
| | ▸ | Kurt Munkacsi (engineer) | | Kurt has been a regular collaborator with Philip Glass, as engineer, sound designer and producer. Mike was introduced to him by Clodagh Simmonds. Also appears in: Exposed
| | ▸ | Tom Newman (engineer) | | Also appears in: Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge, Five Miles Out, Islands, Amarok, Heaven's Open, Tubular Bells II, The Songs of Distant Earth, Voyager
| | ▸ | Renate Blauel (assistant engineer) | | Staff engineer at AIR Studios, who worked on a whole string of albums, including those by Japan, The Human League and, perhaps most memorably, Elton John, to whom she was briefly married.
| | ▸ | Richard Manwaring (assistant engineer) | | Engineer and producer who's worked on countless albums, including those by Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Talking Heads and Chick Corea. Also appears in: Five Miles Out
| | ▸ | Demelza (musician) | | A percussionist who played with Pierre Moerlen's Gong, as well as with Steve Winwood.
| | ▸ | Francisco Centeno (musician) | | Another New York session bassist. He was first discovered at the age of 15, when Motown songwriters Ashford and Simpson heard him playing in a New York high school band. This led to him working with Motown stars like Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross. He has gone on to play with Aretha Franklin, Bette Midler, John Mayall, Gladys Night, Whitney Houston and many, many more.
| | ▸ | Sally Cooper (musician) | | Mike's girlfriend in the late 70s and early 80s, who Mike had first met in the Virgin press office, where she worked. Sally was mother to his first three children, Molly, Dougal and Luke.
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| | ▸ | Neil Jason (musician) | | New York session bassist who's performed on albums alongside John McLauchlin, Cyndi Lauper, Randy and Michael Brecker (on 'Heavy Metal Be Bop') and Mark Knopfler (on his 'Local Hero' soundtrack).
| | ▸ | Peter Lemer (musician) | | Jazz keyboardist, who released an album called Local Colour with the Peter Lemer quintet in 1969 before going on to work with more rock orientated groups during the 70s. Played alongside legendary drummer Ginger Baker in the band 'Baker-Gurvitz Army', and also one one of Pierre Moerlen's Gong's albums. Also appears in: Exposed
| | ▸ | Pierre Moerlen (musician) | | Drummer with (and later leader of) the prog-rock group Gong. Mike would have met Gong while he was at The Manor recording Tubular Bells at the same time as they were recording their 'Flying Teapot' album (another of Virgin records' early releases). Mike made a guest appearance on Gong's LP 'Downwind'. He died unepectdly of natural causes in 2005. Also appears in: Ommadawn, Incantations, Exposed, Islands
| | ▸ | Morris Pert (musician) | | Although maybe best known as a percussionist (America's Billboard magazine voted him as the no 4 Jazz and Rock percussionist in 1977), Morris Pert is also a composer, having written 3 symphonies. He later set up his own studio in his native Scotland, where he concentrated on composition and electronic music recording. As a percussionist, Morris has worked with names like Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Paul McCartney and Phil Collins. He died in 2010. Also appears in: QE2, Five Miles Out, The Killing Fields
| | ▸ | Nico Ramsden (musician) | | Another musician who played in Pierre Moerlen's Gong. The English born guitarist has also worked with Sally Oldfield, Linda Thompson, The Proclaimers, Steve Harley and Rick Wakeman. Also appears in: Exposed
| | ▸ | Wendy Roberts (musician) | | Singing on Platinum was Wendy Roberts's first high profile singing job. She was to continue working with Mike until 1980, when Maggie Reilly became his singer of choice for the next few years. After discovering that she had a voice similar to that of the late Karen Carpenter, Wendy Roberts began giving Carpenters tribute shows across the UK (together with Phil Aldridge), which she continues to do to this day.
| | ▸ | Hansford Rowe (musician) | | An American bassist who became involved with Mike while playing in Pierre Moerlen's Gong. He met Pierre Moerlen in 1976, while Pierre was in New York after the break up of the original Gong and soon moved to France with him to form part of the new Gong line up.
In 1989, Hansford teamed up with guitarist Jon Catler, forming the band 'Steel Blue'. Jon was experimenting with microtonal music, and between them they worked on a new system of tuning, called 'Just Intonation', a system designed to not have the shortfalls of the equal temperament system which forms the basis for most western musical instruments. Bass manufacturers, Warwick, make a just intonation fretless bass, designed in conjunction with Jon Catler and Hansford Rowe.
| | ▸ | Alan Schwartzberg (musician) | | One of New York's top session drummers. His interest in drumming first came about after hearing jazz drumming, which was the genre in which he worked until he started to become interested in other musical styles, such as R&B. Among the names that Alan has worked with are John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Roxy Music, Peter Gabriel, Robert Palmer, Alice Cooper, Kiss and Stan Getz. Alan also overdubbed drums on two albums of Jimi Hendrix material, 'Crash Landing' and 'Midnight Lightning', put together from left over tracks after Jimi's death.
| | ▸ | Trevor Key (cover artwork) | | Also appears in: Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge, Incantations, Tubular Bells 2003
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Instruments
| Electric guitars |
| Gibson L6-S Deluxe |
Mike had this guitar modified by Tony Zemaitis sometime between 1979 and 1980. He added an engraved metal scratchplate and headstock plate.
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Also used in Incantations, Exposed
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| Synthesisers |
| Solina string ensemble |
String synthesiser produced by the Dutch organ company Eminent and later rebadged by ARP. It owed much of its sound to its ensemble effect, created by running the sound through three LFO-modulated delay lines. |
Also used in Ommadawn, Incantations, QE2, Five Miles Out, Crises, Return To Ommadawn
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| Moog Polymoog |
Polyphonic analogue synthesiser. |
Also used in QE2
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| Roland SH-2000 |
Monophonic analogue synthesiser. Mike often used the clarinet preset, recording it at half speed to create the recorder-like whistling sound which was a common feature of his albums and singles between 1978 and 1980. |
Also used in Incantations
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| Sequential Circuits Prophet V |
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Also used in QE2, Five Miles Out, Crises, Discovery
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| Loudspeakers |
| Westlake TM-1 |
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Also used in Ommadawn, Incantations
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| Studio effects and outboard |
| Urei 1176 Peak Limiter |
Mike originally borrowed some of these from the Manor Mobile, but later acquired his own. |
These were still in Mike's rack in 1980 (shown in the Essential Mike Oldfield video) and so presumably still in use.
Also used in Ommadawn, Incantations, Tubular Bells II, Tubular Bells 2003
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| Tape recorders |
| Ampex MM1200 |
24 track, 2" multitrack tape recorder. As seen in the making of Blue Peter feature. |
Also used in Incantations
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| Sequencers |
| EMS Universal Sequencer |
Related to the sequencer from EMS's Synthi KS (available both on its own and as part of the Synthi AKS suitcase synthesiser/sequencer, as used by Pink Floyd and Jean Michel Jarre, amongst others). The Universal Sequencer had control voltage and gate outputs for controlling analogue synthesisers. Mike primarily used it together with his ARP 2600. According to EMS, very few of them were made. |
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Also used in Incantations, QE2, Five Miles Out
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