making of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells

Book excerpt: Richard Newman first made a name for himself in the mid-70s, as an interviewer on an all-night programme called Night Flight, in the early days of Capital Radio.Since then he has been one of the great animators of English acoustic and electric music, tireless in his work as a film maker, record producer, guitar teacher and musician.Newman has the rare ability to persuade musicians to open up and talk about their work, perhaps because he is a gifted musician himself. He uses that talent brilliantly in this book, a tribute to one of the great landmarks of English music.Using hours of tape interviews that he recorded in 1993 with the three people who make Mike Oldfield's legendary Tubular Bells, author and broadcaster Richard Newman presents the true story of how this unique, iconic and multi-million selling album was created.Their accounts tell how a chance meeting by a group of young people was to result in them simultaneously creating the first residential recording studio, producing one of the biggest selling records of all times, and establishing the renowned Virgin Records label.Tubular Bells has gone on to sell approximately 20 million copies, and continues selling today.