When Marc Bolan and Rick Wakeman were Earwigs backing Tony Visconti as Dib Cochran - Oh Baby (1971)

[highplainsdem]

This incredibly important (lol) but largely unknown episode of rock history is going to require some explanation.

Fortunately, there are two explanations - one from Tony Visconti in his autobiography, Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy, and the other from Rick Wakeman on YouTube. Rick also posted audio of the single there. (Oh, how I wish there were video...)

I'm going to type up the paragraph about this from page 156 of Tony's book, and I need to set this up with some background first.

Tony is of course the legendary producer of both Marc Bolan/T.Rex and David Bowie, and he was their friend as well. He was also the producer for the Strawbs, and Rick Wakeman had joined them, but he'd known Tony earlier from work he (Rick) had done as a session musician; they were also friends.

At the time this was recorded, in March of 1971, Tony and his girlfriend, Liz Hartley, were sharing a flat in the converted Victorian mansion of Haddon Hall - https://www.londonremembers.com/subjects/haddon-hall - with David and Angie Bowie (who had sometimes stayed at Tony and Liz's place earlier, before they had their own place). Tony was also a member, the bass player, of the Hype, a backing band David had created that also included guitarist Mick Ronson and drummer John Cambridge (who had introduced Mick to the others, but was later replaced by Woody Woodmansey). The Hype had performed in late February wearing costumes Angie and Liz had helped them create, a performance Tony considered the beginning of glam rock. That spring Tony also produced Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World, T.Rex's A Beard Of Stars, and the Strawbs' Dragonfly.

Busy period for Tony, and what had earlier seemed like an "idyllic hippie commune" at Haddon Hall was becoming overcrowded and chaotic, so by the time the Earwigs single came out that summer, sometime soon after Tony had recorded the Strawbs' first live album, Just A Collection Of Antiques And Curios, on July 11, Tony - who was the only one in that commune who had a steady job - had decided he and Liz would have to move out, and they found a place of their own close enough that Tony could maintain daily contact with David. Tony brought up the single at that point in his book.

As we were moving out a strange single that we had recorded back in March came out. "Oh Baby" and "Universal Love" by Dib Cochran and the Earwigs was a rather brilliant idea of Marc Bolan. I played bass, arranged the strings and sang lead vocals as 'Dib'. John Cambridge played drums, Marc played guitar and sang backing vocals, and Rick Wakeman played piano. Mick Ronson, who had just joined Bowie's band, came along to watch. David Platz had some extra free time at CTS in North London and gave us a whole six hours to do whatever we wanted. The Earwigs project was an experiment to see if Marc could write and record a hit single. But just in case it didn't work he wouldn't put his name on it. Marc specifically wanted me to sing lead, as his voice was so recognizable. As it was, the single didn't really do anything in the shops.

It did, however, show the direction Marc was moving, toward the pop-rock sound of glam rock.

Rick Wakeman's explanation is in the second video below. The first one below, which Rick labeled as part 2 when he uploaded these to YouTube, is the single itself, the A side. I'll put the instrumental B side - "Universal Love" - below those. I don't have any details about the writing/recording of the B side, haven't run across anything from Tony or Rick about it, whether it was composed in advance or just something they came up with in the studio.