04/12/2025
"Staffmen at Motown had a good run. Now it’s Stockport with the will to stretch the pop song" (Melody Maker 1974)
In one small Stockport building, one of the greatest ever pop singles (10cc's I'm Not in Love) and one of the top-ten albums of all time (Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures) were recorded. It was a place where local artists (Barclay James Harvest, The Syd Lawrence Orchestra, Sad Cafe, The Smiths, Buzzcocks, Factory Records, New Order, Martin Hannett, Granada Television, James, Simply Red, The Stone Roses and many others) could stay in the region to showcase their talent. National stars such as Paul McCartney recorded there and international superstar Neil Sedaka made his comeback there by recording two albums in the early 1970s. And then there was also an eclectic mix of records created there, from the comedy of the Hee Bee Gee Bees, through St Winifred's School Choir and Sir Michael Horden talking about trains, to an array of sporting greats (such as the two Manchester football teams plus Leeds, Everton and Lancashire Cricket Club). But for one of Manchester's greats, 10cc, it was home - a place they could retreat to in order to create hit singles, albums and an amazing array of sounds from 1972 until 1976.
And now, the story of how one man, Peter Tattersall, imagined, started and built Strawberry Recording Studios up over 20 years, outside of the established recording studio Capital of London, and how it became 10cc's home, is available for all to read. Published by Manchester's Empire Publications, 'Strawberry Studios Forever' details an important part of Manchester's music history and shows how many of the 'Manchester Music' attributes often thought to absent until the mid-1970s were more than evident in Strawberry Recording Studios in Stockport from 1967 onwards.
https://www.empire-uk.com/strawberry.htm
