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Black Sabbath Back in the Beginning: Rockfield Studios

The Rockfield Studios Team in 1988 - how the studio business (& The West) was won
4 minute read
The Rockfield Studios Team in 1988 - how the studio business (& The West) was won
Black Sabbath Back in the Beginning: Rockfield Studios
6:36

Replay: Watching the live stream of the Black Sabbath Back to the Beginning gig yesterday jogged our memory, so we had a deep root round and found this profile of the studio where Paranoid first took shape in the archives. By Jim Evans.

[The majority of the following was written and first published in 2016. Charles Ward died in 2022. A year afterwards, Kingsley Ward received an MBE for services to music. Ed.]

Rockfield Studios, which has now been in commercial operation for more than 60 years, was the world's first residential studio, and established by Charles and Kingsley Ward in 1963 in the attic of the main house of their Monmouth family farm. It was a mono studio with a Phillips valve 2-track tape machine, an Elcon mixer and miscellaneous outboard equipment.

Says Kingsley Ward, "Reinvention has always been the key to our longevity and, in 1965, the studio had progressed into an outbuilding and we had a new mixing console built by Rosser Electronics in Swansea, a second EMI TR90 2 track tape recorder, plus more outboard gear and an EMT echo plate. By 1968, we had outlived this studio and opened another studio using the same mixing console in converted stables. By now, we also had an added facility of an 8 track Lever Rich tape recorder finally progressing to multi-track media! Never wishing to stay still for too long, we opened a second studio in 1973 with both studios equipped with 24 track Studer tape machines and another Rosser console in the new studio."

String of hits

Accommodation was added in 1965 and the studio was officially christened Rockfield after the nearby village of the same name at the suggestion of Dave Edmunds. Groups who started their careers at Rockfield in the 1960s included Andy Fairweather Low (Amen Corner) and The Silence, later to become Mott The Hoople.

And, while it was recorded elsewhere, it's where Black Sabbath rehearsed and fine-tuned the Paranoid album.  "We were very loud and Rockfield allowed us the freedom," Osbourne told the BBC in 2020. "Because no-one would allow us to play as loud as that. The roof tiles were rattling."

The first big hit recorded in the studios was Dave Edmunds' I Hear You Knocking in 1970. Following that success, the studios were used in the early 1970s to record seven albums by Budgie, several by Hawkwind, one by Hobo, Peter Hammill's second solo album Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night in 1973, Ace's hit single How Long? in 1974, and Queen's album Sheer Heart Attack. In August 1975, Queen returned to Rockfield to begin recording the album A Night At The Opera, including Bohemian Rhapsody. Motorhead made their first recordings at the studios in 1975 and were, briefly, signed to the Rockfield record label.

Through the years, those who have recorded at Rockfield include Rush (A Farewell To Kings, Hemispheres), Queen (A Night At The Opera, Bohemian Rhapsody, Sheer Heart Attack), Iggy Pop (Soldiers), Robert Plant (Pictures At Eleven), Simple Minds, Oasis (What's The Story...), Julian Lennon, Paul Weller, and many others. During a 12-month period in 1996-97, Rockfield sessions resulted in five UK Number One albums, by Oasis, Black Grape, The Charlatans and the Boo Radleys

"When I think of the many sessions done at Rockfield over the past 47 years, it is impossible to identify one out of so many memories," says Ward. "Other than Abbey Road, Rockfield can claim to have sold more records than most of our contemporaries put together and could likewise claim to have bequeathed to the world some of the greatest records ever recorded and possibly some of the worst!"

Recording of Bohemian Rhapsody began at Rockfield on 24 August 1975, after a three-week rehearsal in Herefordshire. During the making of the track, an additional four studios (Roundhouse, SARM (East), Scorpion, and Wessex) were used. In the converted feed store, Ward observes, "In the corner over there. That's where Freddie Mercury wrote Bohemian Rhapsody, using a clapped out old piano and surrounded by foodbins, saddles and cobwebs. I couldn't believe it. He sat in there for ages while the other boys played frisbee outside."

Doing it their way

Regarding studio design, Rockfield has generally relied on following its own instincts. "The secret of studios is never ever call on the services of acoustic design experts and pay them a lot of money for what really doesn't amount to very much," suggests Ward, who rarely minces his words. "Certainly, it's nice to have a bit of advice now and then, but paying thousands, maybe millions of pounds to somebody for this sort of thing in my view is money down the pan. My answer is do it yourself. Stick your finger in your ear and think as if you were in a group or working as a producer – what would you want? You'd want to put the drums in one part to sound one way and then in another part not too far away where they'll sound different. It's the same thing with the guitars, naturally you can go from echo to nothing by moving round the studios and the only way to do that is by designing the studio with multiple different areas in it, all different sounding.

"One of the reasons Rockfield has succeeded for so long is that we've always done the opposite to what everyone else has. Producers and others who come here tell us that most other studios are simply acoustically designed boxes. We have been told that we are one of the few true studios. That's possibly right to a degree. It depends what you see in a studio and what you want from it. We built the studios ourselves with little money and we soon realised if you want to get good sounds, you've got to put multiple functions in the room. It's not rocket science. All it takes is a brain in your head, a bit of hardboard and some curtaining."

And the secret behind Rockfield's longevity? "It's simple," declares Ward. "We're here because we have never been caught up in fashion. We have tended to totally ignore the directions other studios have taken and what they have done. Now, we like to think that we're probably so far behind that we're in front of the rest. We are what we are and don't make major claims to being anything else.

"We've never made a fortune out of the studios and never will. At present, we're doing fine, thank you very much. We don't want everyone to follow us, but if they do, we're not bothered. If it all ends tomorrow, we've had the fun and not a little glory."

Tags: Audio

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