HOW THE ORIGINAL RECORDING OF “THE EIGHT OCTAVE VOICE” WAS MADE
In 1968, Barry Irwin and I worked out that the time had come to promote Roy’s voice through making a recording of him. At this time, Roy was working hard on his voice in our new centre, the “Abraxas Club”, originally the ‘Hampstead Squash Club’. Since the squash courts had a superb naturel echo of their own, we proposed that the recording should take place there. Roy was in agreement and allowed us take the already old second-hand ‘Revox’ recording machine down from the studio at the top of the building to the number two squash court on the first floor. We suspended the microphone over the edge of the viewing gallery and as Roy improvised freely, we pressed the recording button and let the tape run. This one session became "the 8 Octave Voice" as reproduced here!
Barry and I found a small company in Baker Street that agreed to cut our disc for us. We took them our spool of edited tape. Even though it was too long in time to be used on a 45 rpm disc, they still kindly managed to fit the whole tape onto the master cut for us. We had a hundred copies made with white jackets and white centre discs. We then had a rubber stamps made to fill in the titles as shown above. Each one was stamped up and hand finished (just like now!) All the discs went. I have no idea who were the recipients but if they still have them now, they should try and find out what they are worth today! You will hear in the recordings that there is quite an echo. This was not electronically produced, it was not possible to add reverb in those days. No, it was the naturel echo of the squash courts at play.
Quite by accident, I found that I had still had one of these discs in my possession - after all these years! I was so fascinated when I played it, I decided to re-issue it for you to enjoy also.
Paul Silber
This disc was the only recording that Roy made in the knowledge of its public use.
Barry Irwin
Index page of "8 Octave voice"
