Moonlight shadow - Mike Oldfield - 1983

Mike Oldfield

Moonlight shadow

Mike Oldfield

Fonte: ondarock.it

Mike Gordon Oldfield nasce a Reading il 15 maggio 1953. La sua passione per la musica comincia a manifestarsi già all'età di sette anni quando, dopo aver visto in tv il virtuoso Bert Weedon, convince il padre a comprargli una chitarra. La musica diventa ben presto il suo 

passatempo preferito, nonché il rifugio che gli permette di estraniarsi da una situazione familiare infelice, con una madre alcolizzata e afflitta da crisi depressive. Il difficile rapporto con la madre contribuisce in maniera schiacciante alla creazione di una personalità 

introversa, che causerà a Mike Oldfied non pochi problemi nella prima parte della sua carriera. 

Abbandonate prima la famiglia e poi la scuola, Oldfield comincia a suonare nei club e dà vita al duo folk Sallyangie con la sorella Sally; la coppia inciderà due 45 giri ("Lady Go Lightly" e "Two Ships") e un album ("Children Of The Sun"), che ebbe scarso successo e 

causò la fine del progetto. Una breve parentesi nella sua vita artistica si rivela essere anche il successivo gruppo The Barefeet, formato assieme al fratello Terry. Ben più importanza ha invece il suo ingresso nel 1969 come bassista-chitarrista nella band The Whole World, 

formata da Kevin Ayers in fuga dai Soft Machine, in piena era Canterbury: Mike incide al suo fianco gli studio-album "Shooting At The Moon", "Whatevershebringswesing", "Confessions Of Dr. Dream And Other Stories" e il live "June 1, 1974" (ricordiamo anche le 

raccolte "The Kevin Ayers Collection" e "Odd Ditties"), prima dello scioglimento della band avvenuto nel 1971. Durante la permanenza nella band Oldifield stringe amicizia col tastierista e direttore d'orchestra David Bedford (che avrà un ruolo abbastanza importante 

nel suo primo scorcio di carriera), viene a contatto con realtà musicali atipiche come i Centipede di Keith Tippett (pianista collaboratore ad esempio dei King Crimson), vede la sua fama di chitarrista crescere e, soprattutto, comincia a pensare a un suo album solista. 

Source: allmusic.com

Composer Mike Oldfield rose to fame on the success of Tubular Bells, an eerie, album-length conceptual piece employed to stunning effect in the film The Exorcist. Born May 15, 1953, in Reading, England, Oldfield began his professional career at the age of 14, forming 

the Sallyangie folk duo with his sister Sally; a year later, the siblings issued their debut LP, Children of the Sun. By the age of 16, he was playing bass with Soft Machine founder Kevin Ayers' group the Whole World alongside experimental classical arranger David Bedford and 

avant-garde jazz saxophonist Lol Coxhill; within months, Oldfield was tapped to become the band's lead guitarist prior to recording the 1971 LP Shooting at the Moon.

Tubular Bells, originally dubbed Opus 1, grew out of studio time gifted by Richard Branson, 

who at the time was running a mail-order record retail service. After its completion, Oldfield shopped the record to a series of labels, only to meet with rejection; frustrated, Branson decided to found his own label, and in 1973 Tubular Bells became the inaugural release of 

Virgin Records. An atmospheric, intricate composition that fused rock and folk motifs with the structures of minimalist composition, the 49-minute instrumental piece (performed on close to 30 different instruments, virtually all of them played by Oldfield himself) spent 

months in the number one spot on the U.K. charts, and eventually sold over 16 million copies globally. In addition to almost single-handedly establishing Virgin as one of the most important labels in the record industry, Tubular Bells also created a market for what would 

later be dubbed new age music, and won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition in 1974.

Hergest Ridge The follow-up, 1974's Hergest Ridge (named after Oldfield's retreat in a remote area of Herefordshire) also proved phenomenally successful, and dislodged Tubular Bells at the top of the British chart. With 1975's Ommadawn, he explored ambient textures 

and world music; however, the emergence of punk left Oldfield baffled, and he retreated from sight for three years following the LP's release. He resurfaced with 1978's Incantations. Platinum, issued a year later, kept its eye on the clubs, and featured a dance version of the 

Philip Glass composition "North Star." With 1980's QE2, Oldfield moved completely away from his epic-length pieces and traveled into pop territory, a shift typified by the album's cover of ABBA's "Arrival." He continued in a pop vein for much of the 1980s, as albums like 

1983's Crises, 1984's Discovery, and 1987's Islands encroached further and further upon mainstream accessibility.

The Songs of Distant Earth In 1992, Oldfield teamed with producer Trevor Horn for Tubular 

Bells II, which returned him to the top of the U.K. charts. The Songs of Distant Earth 

appeared two years later, followed by a third Tubular Bells update in 1998. In 2003, Oldfield re-recorded Tubular Bells in celebration of its 30th anniversary, with John Cleese as master 

of ceremonies replacing the late Vivian Stanshall; the album was issued as a two-disc set including a video disc. Light + ShadeLight + Shade, a double-disc conceptual work of new studio material, 

appeared in 2006. An album-length classically influenced piece, Music of the Spheres, appeared in 2008, followed by a live offering. After a four-year break from his own work, Oldfield reentered the studio and began working on a return to pop/rock-influenced music. In early 2014 he emerged with Man on the Rocks.