Strawberry Studios was a famous British recording studio located in Stockport (originally part of Cheshire, now part of Greater Manchester) that operated between 1968 and 1993. At its peak, it was among the most highly regarded professional recording studios outside of London. Originally (and briefly) named Inter-City Studios and formed by band manager Peter Tattersall and musician/sound engineer Eric Stewart, it was renamed after Stewart's favorite Beatles song Strawberry Fields Forever. The business partnership was joined in 1969 by hit songwriter Graham Gouldman as an investor, and musicians/recording boffins Kevin Godley and Lol Creme came to work there as technicians that year.
The studio started doing contract work for Kasanetz and Katz producing "bubblegum pop" written by Stewart, Gouldman, Godley and Creme and grew as it upgraded and expanded its recording equipment and technical capabilities. Neil Sedaka recorded his successful 1972 album Solitaire there, and he encouraged the foursome to form a band and release their own work. 10cc was the highly successful result, made possible to a great extent by the band members owning their own studio. The group's first four albums were recorded there, and by the mid 1970s the studio was operating 24 hours a day.
Technically innovative and constantly chasing the bleeding edge of audio recording technology, the studio recorded singles and albums by a broad array of famous artists, including Paul McCartney, Joy Division, The Smiths, The Stone Roses, and Moody Blues. A second studio, Strawberry Studios South, was opened by Gouldman and Stewart in 1976, with Strawberry Mastering opening in London in 1978. However, by 1986 they both sold their interest in the business, and audio recording at the Stockport location ceased in 1993 with its conversion to a film and video production facility.
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