Boomerang Koozbane: 10cc (Everything you wanted to know about...)

Highlights of their ridiculously impressive resume are emphasized in red.

Forming in 1973, 10cc’s initial line-up consisted of four ridiculously overqualified guys – each of them a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger and recording engineer. They were; Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley and Lol Crème.

In the 1960s, Eric Stewart was the lead guitarist with Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, on their hit, “The Game of Love”. When Wayne quit, Stewart took over as the group’s lead vocalist and scored with the #1 hit, “A Groovy Kind of Love”. They appeared in the hit movie “To Sir With Love”.

From 1965 through 1968, Graham Gouldman wrote "For Your Love", "Heart Full of Soul" and "Evil Hearted You" for The Yardbirds, "Look Through Any Window" (with Charles Silverman) and "Bus Stop" for The Hollies, "Listen People", "No Milk Today" and "East West" for Herman's Hermits.

In the late 60’s, Gouldman came to the attention of bubblegum pop tycoons Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffry Katz of Super K Productions, marketers of countless, faceless teeny bopper records accredited to an endless list of fake band names. He worked for them for months as a production – line songwriter, cranking out a song a day. A minor success from July of 1969 was "Sausalito", a No. 86 US hit performed by the future members of 10cc and featuring Gouldman on vocals, but credited to the group The Ohio Express.

Around this time, Gouldman and Stewart were investing in building their fledgling Strawberry Studios.

Gouldman suggested to Kasenets / Katz that Gouldman and his friends Stewart, Godley and Crème could crank out bubblegum records at Strawberry Studios at a dirt cheap rate, and with a ruthless efficiency. Always purveyors of cheap quantity over reasonably priced quality, Kasenets / Katz quickly agreed. Our heroes cranked out finished records of original songs, under such sobriquets as The Ohio Express (although they had nothing to do with "Yummy, Yummy I've Got Love in My Tummy"), Silver Fleet, Doctor Father, Tristar Airbus, Crazy Elephant (although they had nothing to do with “Gimme Gimme Good Lovin’”), Peter Cowap, Garden Odyssey, and many, many others. The earnings from their prolific output allowed them to update the studio to a state-of-the-art facility.

In 1970, Stewart, Godley and Creme scored a worldwide hit with “Neanderthal”, credited to the group name Hotlegs. The song was really just a recording made to test the miking of the drums before a recording session. They recorded a full album “Hotlegs Thinks – School Stinks”. Hotlegs opened for The Moody Blues on tour, adding Gouldman to their live line-up.

The quartet produced and played the instruments on two commercially successful albums by Neil Sedaka; “Solitaire” and “The Tra-La Days Are Over”. The guys decided they were wasting precious time devoting themselves to the professional presentation of others, and decided to do for themselves what they did for Sedaka.

They formed 10cc.

Their manager, Jonathan King, claimed he chose the name after he dreamt he was standing in front of the Hammersmith Odeon in London where the marquee read "10cc The Best Band in the World". Crème and Gouldman claimed that one of them had read that 10ccs would be an inordinate amount for a man to ejaculate, so the name was chosen to connote prowess and potency.

Their self-titled debut album was released in 1973. It featured three songs that were hits in the UK; ‘Donna’ peaked at number 2, ‘Rubber Bullets’ scored a number 1, and ‘The Dean and I’ made number 30.

Their second album “Sheet Music” was released in 1974 to critical acclaim. Two of it’s songs, “The Wallstreet Shuffle” and “Silly Love” were #10 and #24 hits respectively, in the UK. The album remained in the UK charts for six months.

Album #3 was called “The Original Soundtrack”. It featured the huge, worldwide breakthrough hit, “I’m Not In Love”. It hit #1 in the UK and #2 in the US. “Life is a Minestrone” reached #7 in the UK.

1976 saw the release of the album “How Dare You?” It featured two more UK hits, “Art for Art’s Sake” #5 and “I’m Mandy, Fly Me” #6.

After it’s release, Godley & Crème left the group.

Gouldman and Stewart proved they were more than capable of maintaining the brand’s reputation. “Deceptive Bends” was arguably 10cc’s most uniformly excellent and accessible album. Hits were "The Things We Do for Love" (UK No. 6, US No. 5), "Good Morning Judge" (UK No. 5, US No. 69) and "People in Love" (US No. 40). That same year, 1977, saw the release of a live double album, “Live and Let LIVE”.

‘Bloody Tourists” (1978) contained 10cc’s final hit, but it was a big one –the reggae tinged “Dreadlock Holiday” reached number one in the UK.

Gouldman and Stewart went on to create several more 10cc albums, some of them quite good, but none especially successful commercially, or even critically.

In addition to several solo albums, Stewart engineered and/or produced “Blue Jays” by Justin Hayward and John Lodge (of The Moody Blues), Neil Sedaka’s “Sedaka's Back”, “Sad Café”, and “Facades”, by Sad Café, and “Eyes of a Woman” by Agnetha Faltskog (formerly one of the A’s in ABBA). He co-wrote more than half the songs on Paul McCartney's album “Press to Play”. He also played multiple instruments and performed backing vocals on many of McCartney’s recordings from 1982 through 1986, including the albums; Tug of War, Pipes of Peace, Give My Regards to Broadstreet, Press to Play, and the hits, ‘Say, Say, Say’, ‘Take It Away’, ‘We All Stand Together’ and ‘Spies Like Us’.

In 1979, Gouldman scored a minor hit, “Sunburn” written for the film of the same name. He produced The Ramone’s “Pleasant Dreams”. He produced, and composed most of the score for the animated film “The Animalympics”.

Between 1984 and 1990, Gouldman teamed with his friend, American pop singer / songwriter Andrew Gold, forming the group Wax.

In the late ‘90s, he co-wrote songs with Paul Carrack (of Ace, Roxy Music, and Squeeze) and Kirsty MacColl.

In 2006, Gouldman and Godley formed a songwriting partnership, resulting in six songs they released as computer downloads from their joint website.

Of course, Gouldman also recorded several solo albums.

Gouldman now tours as 10cc, but is the only founding member in its line-up. In 2018, he toured as a member of Ringo’s All-Starr Band.

In 1985 Godley and Crème scored a #15 hit with “Cry”. Its music video (which melded a series of crying faces) was hugely influential, as witnessed by the fact that Godley and Crème went on to direct, among many other music videos: