ROCK’N’ROLL CONFIDENTIAL
Graham Gouldman
10cc’s master songwriter talks The Yardbirds, Ringo, and the pros and cons of bubblegum.
Notes to self: Graham Gouldman’s songwriter radar is always up.
Alamy
BORN IN SALFORD in 1946, Graham Gouldman was elected to the Songwriters Hall Of Fame in 2014. Anyone who’s listened to pop music will know why he’s there alongside Bacharach and David, Jimmy Webb, Lennon and McCartney and the hallowed rest. He penned ’60s hits for Herman’s Hermits (No Milk Today), The Hollies (Bus Stop), The Yardbirds (Heart Full Of Soul) and more, wrote for bubblegum pop factory Kasenetz-Katz in New York, and then co-founded compulsive experimenters 10cc in 1972. Millions of sales later, with 1975’s magnificent I’m Not In Love their claim to immortality, he’s still sustaining, touring with his incarnation of 10cc and his Heart Full Of Songs project, and recording new LPs, of which I Have Notes is the latest.