Unashamedly stuck in the Seventies I'm listening to Ommadawn on You Tube whilst the Missus watches an emotional US series with far too much real life in it for my liking called Maid.
Ommadawn was the third album by the young musical genius, Mike Oldfield. Its two sides of pure instrumental heaven with guitars and who knows what else. Mike could play virtually every instrument on Earth and did on his albums. When he was just 19 he made Tubular Bells, an iconic Virgin platter that even made it onto the beginning of the Exorcist, which no doubt helped it along the way.
Ommadawn has a short spoken and sung part about riding on horse-back, a passage I used to sing to my daughter when she was a kid in the 80's. Hey and away we go, cross the land cross the snow ..... you may know it. Quite lovely. He also mentions Hergest Ridge, his Seventies place, which I assume he bought when he made a few pennies from Tubular Bells.
Hergest Ridge was also Mike's second album and one I have never heard. I went straight from Bells to Ommadawn for some reason. So now Hergest Ridge is on my bucket list along with a few more missing rock albums, Stormbringer for one and some old films like Razorback and Electra Glide in Blue.
These first three albums were all recorded by Mike before he was 22, an amazing feat for someone so young.
I was in a band back then and never got further than singing my tunes in pubs!
Hey and away we go, cross the land, cross the snow.
Do you like Mike Oldfield's stuff?
PS. This is Mike's new LP, 26 albums later, Return to Ommadawn! I love the cover! I may just have to give it a whirl!
Hi, Woodsy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about MAID. My missus has sat through it twice and said I had to watch it.
I tried, but with all the grief in my own life and the world at large I couldn't take it.
I lasted two and a bit episodes and that was it for me.
Maybe that makes me weak -- but...
It was pushing me over the edge.
Back to THE AVENGERS!
(...of the Steed and Mrs. Peel variety)
ha ha, MAID: I know, its one dire calamity over another: unending family carnage and no light at the end of her terrible tunnel. I occasionally look up at the TV and wish I hadn't! It's still on and I've since listened to Hergest Ridge and moved onto another Bucket List LP, Tarkus by ELP. Gimme Seventies Prog anyday over MAID!
DeleteI love Hergest Ridge, it seemed to pull all of the promising bits of tubular bells into a listeneable form. Too bad for me I can't enjoy it anymore, but I hope you like it!
ReplyDeleteGreat album. I got my first copy from a shop in Ceredigion. Its a cassette, which still works to this day. Although I have had to replace the pressure pad.
ReplyDeleteI love listening to Mike Oldfields music, although my first purchase was Incantations and then got every album up to the Killing Fields. After which life got in the way!
Something I have consistently found with every one of his albums from the time I heard the first one, is that I'll fall asleep listening to them and have the most vivid dreams!!! - It's probably what he intended.
Before I forget, I have got Ommadawn Pt2, and the single off it, which sounds a lot like the 1960s track "Telstar"
DeleteI know what you mean about dreams Bill. In the 80s me and the Missus used to fall asleep to Van Morrison tapes. Inarticulate Speech of the Heart made me dream like mad!
DeleteI love early Mike Oldfield, before he went all Moonlight Shadow. I had the pleasure of interviewing him once, and sitting in his studio listening to the re-recording of Tubular Bells. Very moving. But it's probably fair to say that Mike is an 'odd fish'...!
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful to have interviewed Mike and been in his studio KP! I only listened to Tubular Bells and Ommadawn as a teenager, when my music was the most important thing to me so they are really special sounds. Hergest Ridge I only heard last week and on first play it lacks something for me but that could simply be nostalgia clouding my judgement. I've never heard LP number 4, Incantations from 1978. I hear good things about the LP Crises from much later on. Any good?
DeleteI love Hergest Ridge, but it's a bit less 'rock' than Tubular Bells and so does indeed lack something. Incantations is a double LP that should have been a single. It's great in parts but far too over-extended. Crises, for me, was where the rot set in! - shorter, poppier tunes with little of the classical/folk/jazz influences. And the less said about the endless sequels to Tubular Bells, the better!
DeleteCheers KP. For some odd reason when I played HRidge last week it reminded me of Bo Hannsen's old Lord of the Rings LP. Have you heard that?
DeleteYes, I can see the similarity. I like Bo Hansson's Lord of the Rings, and I think Attic Thoughts and The Magician's Hat are also worth listening to, though a little more conventionally jazzy if I recall correctly.
DeleteAll new to me KP. Thanks for the tip.
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