Mike Oldfield

Early life

Michael Gordon Oldfield was born in Reading, Berkshire, on 15 May 1953, to Raymond Henry Oldfield, an English general practitioner, and Maureen, an Irish nurse from Charleville, County Cork. He has two elder siblings, Sally and Terence, and a younger brother, David, who had Down syndrome; the parents placed David in an institution and told the other children he had died in infancy. His mother became addicted to barbiturates, developed mental health problems, spent much of her life in mental institutions, and died in early 1975.

Oldfield attended Highlands Junior School, St. Edward's Preparatory School, and Presentation College in Reading, then Hornchurch Grammar School after the family moved to Harold Wood, Essex, where he earned one GCE qualification in English. He took up the guitar at age ten, learning technique by copying parts from folk guitarists Bert Jansch and John Renbourn. By twelve he played electric guitar in local folk and youth clubs. After his headmaster requested he cut his long hair in May 1968, Oldfield left school and decided to pursue music full-time.

Career

After leaving school, Oldfield formed the folk duo the Sallyangie with his sister Sally, named after her name and his favourite Jansch tune 'Angie'. They toured England and Paris, signed with Transatlantic Records, and recorded one album, Children of the Sun (1969). After the duo split, Oldfield had a nervous breakdown, auditioned unsuccessfully as bassist for Family, and performed in the electric rock band Barefoot with his brother Terry until early 1970.

In February 1970 he became bassist in the Whole World, the backing band for Kevin Ayers, playing on Ayers's albums Shooting at the Moon (1970) and Whatevershebringswesing (1971), and on Edgar Broughton Band (1971). At Abbey Road Studios he familiarised himself with orchestral percussion, piano, Mellotron and harpsichord, and began writing his own musical ideas. He also worked as a reserve guitarist in a stage production of Hair at the Shaftesbury Theatre, but was fired after playing his part for 'Let the Sunshine In' in 7/8 time.

Musicianship

Oldfield's 1970s recordings featured a broad variety of instrumentation predominantly played by himself, along with guitar sound treatments that suggested other instrumental timbres, such as the 'bagpipe', 'mandolin', 'Glorfindel' and varispeed guitars on Tubular Bells. During the 1980s he became expert in digital synthesizers and sequencers, notably the Fairlight CMI, which dominated his recordings; from the late 1990s he used software synthesizers.

He regularly returned to projects emphasising manually played and part-acoustic instrumentation, such as Amarok (1990), Voyager (1996) and Guitars (1999). Oldfield frequently sang lead and backup parts and contributed experimental vocal effects, including fake choirs and the 'Piltdown Man' impression on Tubular Bells. Among his notable guitars are a 1963 Fender Stratocaster in salmon pink used from 1984 to 2006, a 1989 PRS Artist Custom 24 in amber used from the late 1980s onward, and a 1966 Fender Telecaster in blonde previously owned by Marc Bolan, which was the only electric guitar used on Tubular Bells.

He also used various Gibson Les Paul, Zemaitis and SG guitars, including a 1962 Les Paul/SG Junior model primary for Ommadawn.

Personal life

In 1978 Oldfield married Diana Fuller, a relative of the Exegesis group leader; the marriage lasted three months. From 1979 to 1986 he was in a relationship with Sally Cooper, with whom he had three children; their son Dougal died in 2015 while working at a film production company in London. After that relationship ended, Oldfield entered a relationship with Norwegian singer Anita Hegerland, lasting until 1991, with whom he had two children. In the late 1990s he answered a lonely hearts column in a local Ibiza newspaper and dated Amy Lauer for two months, a relationship troubled by his alcohol and substance abuse.

He began counselling and psychotherapy in 2001. From 2002 to 2013 he was married to Fanny Vandekerckhove, with whom he had two sons. Oldfield and his siblings were raised Catholic. In June 1978, during the recording of Incantations, he completed a three-day Exegesis seminar, which he described as a 'rebirth experience' that helped him conquer his fear of flying; he later gained a pilot's licence and bought his own plane.

He used LSD in his early life, which he said affected his mental health. In the early 1990s he set up Tonic, a foundation sponsoring counselling and therapy. His spiritual outlook includes daily Transcendental Meditation since at least the early 2000s.