Finer Things: A Vinegar Joe Story By Malcom Dome (part III)
The band's second album was recorded very fast, as Gage recollects. "We did it all in two weeks. That's all John Sherry would let us off the road for. Vic Smith then stayed on at The Manor for another two and a half weeks to mix it." Part of the album was recorded at The Manor in Oxfordshire, as well as both Olympic and Island Studios in London. And at the same time as Vinegar Joe were at The Manor a young unknown musician was doing his first album. His name? Mike Oldfield. The album? Tubular Bells!
"Richard Branson, who owned The Manor, asked me to wake up Mike whenever we were leaving the studio to go to bed," chuckles Gage. "Usually about 2am. So, he could go in and record. I would then pop over and let him know when we were at breakfast, so he could finish up (usually around noon)."
"We had no interaction at The Manor with Mike Oldfield whatsoever," insists Brooks. "He was very insular type of person and into himself. In all the time we were at The Manor I cannot even recall him ever saying so much as 'Hello' to us. We never talked to him. At least I never did. Mike probably couldn't wait for us to finish up each day in the studio, so he could get in there."
"The way it worked was that he had very little money available to spend on studio time, so the only time he was able to get on with recording his album was when we weren't in there. That meant going in at 4am or some such unsociable time, when we were all asleep. Did we hear any of Tubular Bells while we were down there? Not a note. But that's fair enough. He just kept what he was doing to himself."
"Yes, I recall we did some of this album at The Manor as Mike Oldfield was doing Tubular Bells," adds Vic Smith, who once more co-produced the album alongside Gage. "The band might have met over a cup of tea. The Manor was a very sociable recording environment and also most conducive to creating music... If needed you could discipline yourself to working while staying at an Elizabethan Manor house with 100 acres of land and gardens!"
Tom Newman, who co-produced Tubular Bells has one special memory of interacting with Vinegar Joe. "I remember Vinegar Joe being at The Manor, and I got on really well with them, especially Pete, Elkie and Steve. I kept in contact with Tim Hinkley until quite recently, when he moved to the States. The only problem was they was a constant 'social distraction' - very ready to persuade me to adjourn with them to the Jolly Boatman pub!"
Mullen has fond memories of recording at The Manor. "It was this beautiful stately home in Oxfordshire. From what I recall, the studio was a converted barn. I do have this recollection of a magnificent, huge oak table. It must have been 12 foot long and a foot deep. Such a wonderful antique. And this had been cut up, so the mixing desk could be put into the middle of it!"
"This was such a lovely place to stay in. All of us in the band had our own rooms. But the road crew were based in the cellar. The trouble was that it was a wine cellar. Filled with bottles of vintage wine! Well, you can imagine what happened. Our roadies just guzzled down a load of the bottles. I don't think Richard Branson was too impressed with all this activity. He probably thought it was a bad idea to have bands like ourselves come into such a nice place and behave the way we did!"
Vic Smith believes he was better prepared to work with Vinegar Joe the second time around.
"The fact that I'd worked on their first album made it easier for me to produce the second one, in the sense that we really got to know each other, and I was able to attend some of their live shows in between. This obviously gave one a clearer picture sound wise on what to head for in the next project."
The photos used on the album were taken by Laurie Lewis, who recalls the shoot vividly.
"The commission came from Storm Thorgerson at Hipgnosis, who designed the cover artwork. Storm chose me because he'd seen the large panoramic format I'd been using, these being 6 x 12 cm colour transparencies, which were useful for full stage photos and offered impressive quality."
The shoot was in a country pub somewhere near Canterbury, I arrived early and was surprised when backstage Elkie changed into her costume in a dressing room slightly bigger than a cupboard. She said, 'At least there's somewhere to dress, often isn't on the road'. Sometime later I got to photograph both Ms. Brooks and Robert Palmer individually; this was after Vinegar Joe disbanded. Island Records chose the images which were put on the album cover. But some other pictures from the session were included in my rock 'n' roll book The Concerts, which was originally published by Paper Tiger in 1979."
The album was titled Rock 'n Roll Gypsies. Pete Gage affirms, "We were rock 'n roll gypsies, so why not have it as the record title?" Released late in 1972, it even charted in America, albeit peaking at a modest 201!
On August 13 the same year, the band played the Reading Festival, on a bill with Quintessence, Ten Years AfterStray, Status Quo, Wizzard and Sutherland Brothers among others.
"I don't recall very much about our Reading Festival set" admits Brooks. "But conditions at all festivals back then were very rancid - come to think of it, they still are. In that sense, nothing much has changed in the last 50 years. Sometimes, we'd go onstage at a festival and get what I can only describe as an apathetic reaction from the crowd. I'm not saying that happened at Reading, but we certainly came up against this quite a few times."
"My attitude was always the same. Whatever the reaction we got from the audience I always sang my heart out. I never gave less than 100 percent. But Robert used to cheese me off a lot, because if he sensed that a crowd was apathetic, then he'd only give a half-hearted performance himself. That was totally against my philosophy."
"We had to play at the Reading Festival in the afternoon, which is never a good idea for any band," sighs Deacon. "It seemed that most of the crowd hadn't woken up as yet. But Elkie soon got them going and on their feet. Basically, I suppose you could say that what we did was warm everyone up for Status Quo."
Pete Gage was a little underwhelmed in his recollections of the band's appearance at Reading.
"For us it was just another open-air gig. You see, although in the UK that was a big deal, it was low key compared to the German concerts we did."
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