Orange Records was launched when I realised that a lot of very talented musicians were coming to the Orange Studios to record demos, but were finding it difficult to secure a record deal. These musicians were making good music and had a professional attitude, yet they were being turned down. More and more of them asked me if I could help them to get a foot in the door, so I decided to start the Orange record label.
An early advertisement to celebrate the launch of the Orange label
I negotiated a pressing and distribution deal with Pye Records for the UK. Soon afterwards, we signed licensing deals for territories around the world.
We designed a record label using the ‘Voice Of The World’ logo and produced a stylish full-colour sleeve. Later, in the early 1970s, when Flower Power was running out of steam, we decided to change the label’s logo, instead opting for a black background with gold lettering.
Full Colour Orange Sleeve
I signed John Miles, who was with a band called The Influence, and it was this group that provided our first release on November 7th, 1969 titled ‘I Want To Live’. The single didn’t make the top ten, but we sold a lot of copies and this launched John’s career. At the same time, we also released a duo called Contrast , which featured Roger and Christine Jeffrey. ‘Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye’ was their first single.
A more mature look for Orange Records
To promote the records we engaged ‘pluggers’ to encourage airplay, and I have to admit I was one of them. This gave me an insight to record promotion and networking, and I made lots of good friends in the business. It was a tough business, though, and the promotion side was very expensive. Most releases sold very well and they received good reviews in the music press. The label became well respected in the music industry. Even now we get lots of requests to re-release those early records. Top DJ, Emperor Rosko, still calls, asking me to bring out the entire Orange Records back catalogue… probably one day I will.
https://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/orange-record-colour.jpg45594604Neil Mitchellhttps://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Orange-Pics-logo-307px-279x103.pngNeil Mitchell2018-06-17 09:53:442018-06-21 12:46:031969 – Launch of Orange Records
A good manager is someone who knows when to say ‘no’, and really cares about the artists’ personal well-being.
Cliff Cooper – Founder & CEO
I’d heard about this massive talent in the North East called John Miles. I went to see him play live and his show was amazing, I just knew that he was going to be very successful. I also knew that he would need to come down to London to record. I spoke with John and his manager and eventually we agreed a deal where I would buy John’s management contract.
Forty years later, I still manage John, and he is a good friend. John is a unique artist and continues to perform all over Europe, where he has a big following and plays to packed-out venues. John has played with just about everybody in the music business from Tina Turner to Jimmy Page, from Joe Cocker to Andrea Bocelli, to name but a few. He’s one of these gifted musicians who can play anything. He’s a great guitarist, pianist, vocalist, songwriter… and golfer. His hit ‘Slow Down’ reached Number 2 in the American charts and the epic ‘Music [was my first love]’ charted in every country in the Western Hemisphere, often reaching Number 1.
John Miles in the Orange Studios recording the first Orange Records single ‘I Want To Live’, 1969
In 1971, I signed Eddie Kidd, the motorcycle stunt rider. He was a great looking guy and fearless when riding his motorbike. He became a household name and I signed him to star in the full-length feature film, Riding High. Eddie also had a great modeling career and featured in the famous Levi’s 501 TV commercial. I was devastated when I heard in 1996 – 3 years after I stopped managing him – that he had a terrible accident which left him unable do stunts again.
Eddie Kidd Levi 501 Advert
I also managed the band Smokie, Nigel Benjamin [ex-Mott The Hoople] together with his band English Assassin, Cock Sparrer, The Realistics (from the U.S.) and The Little Roosters. We went on to sign many of the Orange artists to major record labels.
Ella: Thanks for taking the time to chat to us, welcome to Desertfest 2018, you are here with High on fire, you haven’t released a new album in about three years, will we be hearing any new stuff?
Matt: Not so much, I’m not putting it on the chopping block yet. Our album drops in September and it’s really difficult music, I can do some at practice, I’m not going to put it out there yet. I will put it out there near when the album is dropping.
Ella: So you just released the latest Sleep album, which was a surprise to all of us.
Matt: Ye, long time coming, surprise surprise! We released it on 4:20! Ye it took a little bit to put it all together, there is a lot of stuff on it that is old but its been refreshed. Having Jay actually record some stuff with us, was really good, having our new drummer making an album with us was good. I really like the material on that, I can’t wait to start playing different Sleep songs. We have been playing the same songs for a really long time. I think we all really happy to have a new challenge.
Ella: It’s a great album and it is your first one with Third Man Records, how did that come about?
Matt: Our merch girl, Lindsey its friends with the guys at Third Man and we kind of were talking about how we were going to shop it and who was going to put it out. I like how they are focussed on vinyl and record stores, thats kind of the way Sleep is too. We are into the vintage kind of classic rock, the Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and ACDC. All of that kind of stuff, so going back in time to Rush, the way that they would release an album back then, Third Man is kind of into the same thing. Its old school like that and it seems to work for that band, that’s what that band does, it’s a 70’s rock concert in the 2000’s.
Ella: The reason why we are here today is Orange amps, do you want to run us through your rig which is pretty much all of the amps!
Matt: This tour i’m using two of the dual darks, with High On Fire I can’t go with the whole Sleep rig. With Sleep I’ll hook up nine heads and as many cabinets as I can get and make it controllable. With High On Fire because it is faster and more detailed and precise. When you start making sound waves in that pattern that are that fast, you wouldn’t be able to tell what we were playing, if I was using as much gear as Sleep uses.
The bands are very different in the way that the frequencies are, Sleep you hit a note and you let it ring for a long time. High On Fire you jab it in there. So there is two particular sounds, I have to use filters and with the amps I have to use a higher gain amp. For the Sleep stuff, I have to use a lot of sustain and saturation, for the High On Fire stuff I need it to be a little quicker. I need a quicker pick response, I can’t have so much low end that there is no definition, so there is a lot more mid range.
With High On Fire it’s kind of like part Sleep, part thrash metal, with Black Sabbath tones. I like the Dual Darks for that, Sleep I can use the whole array of Oranges, you just have to kind of get that Malcolm Young kind of sound and then just add your effects and then dial them in. So ye, they are apples and oranges those two bands! So i have to swap pedals and do a bunch of stuff every time I change. But i’m using two Dual Darks and four cabinets, it’s all I need as I have an awesome sound guy. That’s enough for the stage volume and whatever I don’t have the sound guy can pump up.
With Sleep, it’s all about the stage volume, where I’m literally creating my own PA and Al’s making his own PA all the way across the stage. And then when you have another PA that is big enough to expound upon what is already happening, it is massive sounding. But you can’t play fast that way and have anybody understand what you are doing because there is too much going on, there is air moving. But if you just hit it once, then let it ring out for a long time, that’s kind of the point behind that, it’s like an amplifier check that whole band.
Ella: When you are writing, when you are making music, when you have an idea, do instantly know if it is for Sleep or High On Fire? Does that kind of come naturally?
Matt: Kind of, sometimes and sometimes I can make one thing into the other, most of the time I will know if it’s more of a Sleep or a High On Fire riff. I can make a High On Fire riff into a Sleep riff and a Sleep riff into a High On Fire riff, pretty easily. All you have to do is change the tempo and change the bpm’s, change a lot of the accents that are going on.
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For more about the Orange Dual Dark 100 guitar amp click here.
Orange Hire was created to provide the PA and backline for larger venues and the big outdoor summer festivals such as Reading and the Isle of Wight. The fleet of Mercedes 405D vans were converted into state-of-the-art hire vehicles. They were radio-equipped and had full amp repair facilities fitted.
A workshop on wheels. Orange had a fleet of these Mercedes vans.
Colin Norfield and Alan Radcliffe were the roadies for Orange at the time and they were interviewed in the London Evening Standard describing the kind of things they dealt with. It’s a hard life eh?
Evening Standard 1970
Watch the interview with Colin Norfield
Orange Hire at the Munich Olympics
Cliff Cooper – Founder & CEO
In early 1971, we formed a company in Germany – Orange GMBH [GMBH is the German equivalent of ‘Ltd’ in England] – and opened an office in Frankfurt near the Hauptbahnhof main railway station. We secured a customs-free warehouse and then utilised this company as a springboard to boost our sales in Europe. This led to signing a deal to provide PA equipment for music at the Olympic Games in the Munich Stadium. That was a fantastic opportunity and the publicity led to greatly increased business for us throughout Europe.
Mixing Desk in the Olympic Stadium Munich
Sport, 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, A general view of the Opening Ceremony in the Olympic Stadium (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)
We started to build the Orange Studio in the basement at 3 New Compton Street in the summer of 1968. I worked with Brian Hatt, a good friend of mine and an excellent studio technician. Brian Hatt was also a good producer and musician, and played in the band Candy Choir. That summer we both burned the midnight oil for several months building the studio and preparing equipment. In those days, every jack socket and loom had to be hand-cut, stripped, wired and soldered – which seemed to take forever! I can remember doubting whether it would ever get finished, or indeed, work at all. Luckily, it did, and we opened the studio for business that same summer. The studio, with its ex-IBC 24-channel mixing desk worked very well.
In those pre-digital times, every module in the desk had four preamp valves – and if you’ve got twenty-four modules in the desk, that is a lot of valves… One effect of this valve situation is that the heat they generated kept us warm in the winter, but very hot in the summer. Valves also wear out, especially as they are often working 24/7, and so the studio’s equipment required ongoing monitoring and maintenance. A good engineer could hear any slight sound differences between each channel, and would become acutely aware of any loss in sound quality between the desk’s modules.
From left: Brian Hatt, Roger Jeffrey, Cliff Cooper. Haydn Bendal.
We employed a very gifted designer, Roger Jeffrey, who maintained the equipment and went on to design our Amity 24-track tape machines. I invested in an AG440 Ampex 4-track, which was a state-of-the-art professional tape recorder. With this and the stereo Ampex, we were able to bounce tracks. Our sound engineering had really moved forward and we attracted many famous names including Brian Wilson, Stevie Wonder, Robin Gibb, Mickie Most, John Miles, Paul Anka and lots of heavy metal bands. Our basement studio had a great vibe – it was very large and, as nobody lived or worked on either side, volume wasn’t an issue. Most bands preferred to come in for night sessions.
Brian Hatt, Orange Studios’ engineer with Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys
Hot Chocolate recorded one of their early hits ‘Love Is Life’ at the Orange Studio with their producer, Mickie Most. Many of our own studio engineers went on to become world-class producers and engineers. The Orange Studio is where Steve Churchyard learned his craft from Brian Hatt. We gave Steve his first job as a trainee engineer when he was eighteen, and he stayed with us for three years, before landing a job at Sir George Martin’s legendary AIR studios. Currently Steve lives in LA and has worked with just about everybody – world-class artists such as The Eagles, The Darkness, George Michael, and Sheryl Crow.
The AMII Association of Musical Instrument Industries [which no longer exists and is not to be confused with the MIA, Music Industry Association which is doing a great job for the music industry] was formed to promote music and musical product manufacturers in the UK.
For four consecutive years, the AMII turned down Orange’s application to join, but they always refused to give us a reason for this. It would really infuriate me because, of course, many of our competitors were AMII members and were being given an unfair advantage. For instance, members were eligible to receive exclusive grants from the Government’s Board of Trade scheme: grants which would pay half of the cost of exhibition space at international trade shows such as the renowned ones held at Frankfurt and Chicago. And, of course, it was exasperating because we were more than qualified to be in the Association – we were exporting over half a million pounds worth of equipment a year, and representing British innovation throughout the world… and I came of good report. I felt so strongly about the matter, that I actually wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, Edward Heath.
I became yet more frustrated when they introduced the AMII Seal of Approval, which in my view was ethically wrong. They didn’t even bother to set up a department to test equipment before issuing the seal. If you were a member then your products automatically got the AMII Seal of Approval, no matter how badly designed or dangerous they were. As such, I decided to introduce the ‘Orange Gold Seal of Approval’ to draw attention to the rigorous testing we did. I remember we launched the Seal with one of our humorous comic-strip adverts in the trade press – the ad took a swipe at the AMII. It read: ‘Who wants one of their stickers with its smelly glue on the back of their amp? The Orange Gold Seal is the true mark of a quality-built and tested amplifier.’ I knew that they wouldn’t sue.
The AMII Seal of Approval
AMII continued refusing us and other up and coming companies without reason. We decided to get together and form a rival organisation known as IMD [Independent Music Dealers]. In 1972 we held our first trade exhibition to coincide with The London Music Trade Fair which was a similar AMII event. We called the exhibition ‘The London Music Show’, and it proved to be a great success.
Music Week September 1972
Soon afterwards, I received a call from a board member of the AMII asking for a meeting. We met and talked and I was invited to join. I accepted on the condition that they would allow the other companies who had unsuccessfully applied to join. We did it!
Orange amplifiers were issued with a log book before leaving the factory
The Orange log book was essentially a guarantee card and a service record which showed the age of the amplifier, its history and maintenance record. In those days, by law, every car had to have a log book which showed details of the car maker, number-plate, engine size, year of manufacture and change of owner.
I thought it would be a good idea to have a log book for our amplifiers. When an amplifier was purchased from a shop, the buyer would receive his log book and send it back to our head office to register the guarantee and have it stamped [shown opposite]. We in turn would notify our sales reps that an amplifier had been sold in that particular shop. Should a problem have occurred with the amp or it had needed a service, change of valves etc, the customer would take his amplifier along with his log book to an Orange service centre. The work done would be registered in the log book, duly stamped, signed and dated.
Orange Log Book
If somebody was looking to buy a second-hand Orange, they could see the history of the amplifier and would know that genuine replacement parts had been used. This also made it more difficult to sell a stolen or modified amplifier. The log book was a big success in those days and gave us a lot of good publicity. Sometimes an amplifier would change hands several times and come back to us for stamping.
https://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Ink-Stamp.jpg976612Neil Mitchellhttps://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Orange-Pics-logo-307px-279x103.pngNeil Mitchell2018-06-12 15:41:052018-06-21 12:44:501970 – The Orange Log Book
When Stevie Wonder played his legendary Rainbow Theatre concert, he was using Orange gear – and so was Suzi Quatro, who did a great support slot for him. That night I discovered the lengths to which rival amplifier manufacturers would go in their attempts to discredit the reputation of our amplifiers.
Suzi Quatro
After Suzi’s set, Stevie Wonder and his band went on stage. As he turned up the volume on his amplifier in the very first number it went dead! My heart started pounding and I immediately rushed out onto the stage with a spare amp that we’d taken with us. We’d brought one simply because it was such an important high-profile gig for us, that we couldn’t afford to take any risks. I immediately plugged in the spare amp and Stevie carried on – I thanked God that it was all put right so quickly. Throughout the gig I just couldn’t believe that one of our tested, reliable amps had blown simply because Stevie had turned up the volume. After the gig, I asked one of our roadies to go onstage and check out what had gone wrong.
What he discovered was that somebody had deliberately changed the fuse in the mains power plug from a 13 amp to a 1 amp. As the volume was turned up the amp drew more current and blew the fuse. I was amazed later on to discover that this was quite a common dirty trick played by rival manufacturers on each other. Up until that point, I was unaware that this kind of thing happened. Later on, I found out that the culprit was a roadie who worked for another amplifier company. Learning of this really made me feel sick. I have never wished any other amp company any harm, not then – not ever.
After the show, I went backstage to see Stevie who was in his dressing-room. I was so nervous, not least because there were a lot of people there. Stevie called me over and whispered, “What was the problem with the amp Cliff?” At the time, I was unaware about the fuse situation, so I just told him I didn’t know.
“Thanks for sorting it quickly,” he whispered back. To hear Stevie softly say these words was very reassuring, and it proved what a gentleman he is. He could easily have humiliated me in front of the whole room – and I know a few big names who would have done exactly that… but not Stevie Wonder.”
Dennis Sinnott. Head of Orange Publishing, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
I heard a lot about Orange in the early 1970s when I was Head of Copyright at EMI. The first impression for me was seeing this amazing 100 watt Orange amplifier, which was selling in the Orange shop for an unbelievably low price – I think it was about £35. And all the kids were going crazy… they were lining up the whole length of New Compton Street. I remember walking along Charing Cross Road and seeing this psychedelic shop, and its front was this really bright orange colour. I was just fascinated and I thought to myself “God, this is all so new and different…” I also remember seeing this young guy there, who I later found out was Cliff Cooper.”
In the late afternoon of September 17th 1970, Eric Clapton was walking around London’s West End and dropped by the Orange Shop. That evening he was going to a Sly and The Family Stone concert at the Lyceum on the Strand, where he had arranged to meet up with Jimi Hendrix. The next day – September 18th – the music world was stunned by the news that Jimi Hendrix had been found dead in a West London basement flat.
Delaney Bramlett with Eric Clapton – ‘Delaney & Bonnie and Friends’ UK tour 1969
“The night that Jimi died, I was supposed to meet him at the Lyceum to see Sly Stone play. And I brought with me a left-handed Stratocaster. I’d just found it – I think I bought it at Orange Music. I’d never seen one before and I was going to give it to him. The next day – whack – he was gone and I was left with that left-handed Stratocaster.” Extract from a 1970s television interview with Eric Clapton.
Jimi Hendrix’s last concert. Sept 6th 1970. Isle of Fehmarn, Germany
