The Alan Parsons Project was a British
rock band active between 1975 and 1990, whose core membership consisted of producer, audio engineer, musician and composer
Alan Parsons and singer, songwriter and pianist
Eric Woolfson
Eric Norman Woolfson (18 March 1945 – 2 December 2009) was a Scottish songwriter, lyricist, vocalist, executive producer, pianist, and co-creator of The Alan Parsons Project. Together with Parsons they sold over 50 million albums worldwide. ...
. They were accompanied by varying session musicians and some relatively consistent session players such as guitarist
Ian Bairnson, arranger
Andrew Powell, bassist and vocalist
David Paton
David Paton (; born 29 October 1949) is a Scottish bassist, guitarist and singer. He first achieved success in the mid-1970s as lead vocalist and bassist of Pilot, who scored hits with " Magic", "January", "Just a Smile" and "Call Me Round" b ...
, drummer
Stuart Elliott, and vocalists
Lenny Zakatek
Lenny Zakatek (born Lenny du Platel, 1947) is a British singer and musician who has lived in London since the age of thirteen. Zakatek was born just prior to Karachi becoming part of Pakistan and is best known for his work with the British band ...
and
Chris Rainbow
Christopher James Harley, known by the stage name Chris Rainbow (18 November 1946 – 22 February 2015), was a Scottish pop rock singer and musician whose songs "Give Me What I Cry For" and "Solid State Brain" were often played by British radio ...
. Parsons and Woolfson shared writing credits on almost all of the Project's songs, with Parsons producing or co-producing all of the band's recordings.
The Alan Parsons Project released eleven studio albums in its 15-year career, the most successful being ''
I Robot'' (1977) and ''
Eye in the Sky'' (1982). Many of their albums are
conceptual in nature and focus on
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
,
supernatural,
literary and
sociological
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...
themes. Among the group's most popular songs are "
I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You
"I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You" is a song by the British progressive rock band The Alan Parsons Project, featured on their 1977 album '' I Robot''. Written by band leaders Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson, "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You" was sung ...
", "
Games People Play", "
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
", "
Sirius"/"
Eye in the Sky" and "
Don't Answer Me
"Don't Answer Me" is a 1984 song by the Alan Parsons Project from the album '' Ammonia Avenue''. It reached number 15 on the ''Billboard'' charts in the United States and was the final ''Billboard'' Top 20 hit for the group. It also reached numb ...
".
Career
1974–1976: Formation and debut
Alan Parsons met
Eric Woolfson
Eric Norman Woolfson (18 March 1945 – 2 December 2009) was a Scottish songwriter, lyricist, vocalist, executive producer, pianist, and co-creator of The Alan Parsons Project. Together with Parsons they sold over 50 million albums worldwide. ...
in the
canteen of
Abbey Road Studios in the summer of 1974. Parsons acted as Assistant Engineer on
the Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developmen ...
' albums ''
Abbey Road
''Abbey Road'' is the eleventh studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. It is the last album the group started recording, although '' Let It Be'' was the last album completed before the band's break-up in April 1970. It was mostly ...
'' (1969) and ''
Let It Be'' (1970), engineered
Pink Floyd's ''
The Dark Side of the Moon
''The Dark Side of the Moon'' is the eighth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on 1 March 1973 by Harvest Records. The album was primarily developed during live performances, and the band premiered an early version of ...
'' (1973), and produced several acts for
EMI Records.
Woolfson, a songwriter and composer, was working as a session pianist while composing material for a concept album based on the work of
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...
.
Woolfson's idea was to manage Alan and help his already successful production career. This was the start of their longstanding friendly business relationship. He managed Parsons' career as a producer and engineer through a string of successes, including
Pilot,
Steve Harley,
Cockney Rebel
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel are a British glam rock band from the early 1970s from London. Their music covers a range of styles from pop to progressive rock. Over the years they have had five albums in the UK Albums Chart and twelve singles in ...
,
John Miles,
Al Stewart,
Ambrosia, and
the Hollies.
Woolfson came up with the idea of making an album based on developments in the
film industry
The film industry or motion picture industry comprises the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking, i.e., film production companies, film studios, cinematography, animation, film production, screenwriting, pre-production, p ...
—the focal point of the films' promotion shifted from film stars to directors such as
Alfred Hitchcock and
Stanley Kubrick. If the film industry was becoming a director's medium, Woolfson felt the music business might well become a producer's medium.
Recalling his earlier Edgar Allan Poe material, Woolfson saw a way to combine his and Parsons's talents. Parsons produced and engineered songs written and composed by the two, and the first Alan Parsons Project was begun. The Project's first album, ''
Tales of Mystery and Imagination
''Tales of Mystery & Imagination'' (often rendered as ''Tales of Mystery and Imagination'') is a popular title for posthumous compilations of writings by American author, essayist and poet Edgar Allan Poe and was the first complete collection of ...
'' (1976), released by
20th Century Fox Records and including major contributions by all members of Pilot and Ambrosia, was a success, reaching the
Top 40
In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or "cont ...
in the US
''Billboard'' 200 chart.
The song "
The Raven
"The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a distraught lover who is paid a myst ...
" featured lead vocals by the actor
Leonard Whiting
Leonard Whiting (born 30 June 1950) is a British retired actor and singer widely known for his role as Romeo in the 1968 Zeffirelli film version of ''Romeo and Juliet'', a role which earned him the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year ...
. According to the 2007 re-mastered album liner notes, this was the first rock song to use a
digital vocoder
A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation.
The vocoder was ...
, with Alan Parsons speaking
lyrics
Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a " libretto" and their writer, ...
through it, although others such as
Bruce Haack pioneered this field in the previous decade.
1977–1990: Mainstream success and final releases
Arista Records then signed the Alan Parsons Project for further albums. Through the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Project's popularity continued to grow. However, the Project was always more popular in North America,
Ibero-America
Ibero-America ( es, Iberoamérica, pt, Ibero-América) or Iberian America is a region in the Americas comprising countries or territories where Spanish or Portuguese are predominant languages (usually former territories of Portugal or Spain). ...
, and
Continental Europe than in Parsons' home country, never achieving a UK Top 40 single or Top 20 album. The
singles "
I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You
"I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You" is a song by the British progressive rock band The Alan Parsons Project, featured on their 1977 album '' I Robot''. Written by band leaders Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson, "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You" was sung ...
", "
Games People Play", "Damned If I Do", "Time" (the first single to feature Woolfson's lead vocal) and "
Eye in the Sky" had a notable impact on the
''Billboard'' Hot 100. "
Don't Answer Me
"Don't Answer Me" is a 1984 song by the Alan Parsons Project from the album '' Ammonia Avenue''. It reached number 15 on the ''Billboard'' charts in the United States and was the final ''Billboard'' Top 20 hit for the group. It also reached numb ...
" became the Project's last successful single in the United States; it reached the top 15 on the American charts in 1984.
After those successes, however, the Project began to fade from view. There were fewer hit singles, and declining album sales. 1987's ''
Gaudi'' would be the Project's final release, though it had planned to record an album called ''
Freudiana'' (1990) next.
The musical ''Freudiana''
Even though the studio version of ''Freudiana'' was produced by Parsons (and featured the regular Project session musicians, making it an 'unofficial' Project album), it was primarily Woolfson's idea to turn it into a musical. While Parsons pursued his own solo career and took many session players of the Project on the road for the first time in a successful worldwide tour, Woolfson went on to produce musical plays influenced by the Project's music. ''
Freudiana'', ''Gaudi'', and ''Gambler'' were three musicals that included some Project songs like "Eye in the Sky", "Time", "Inside Looking Out", and "Limelight". The live music from ''Gambler'' was only distributed at the performance site in
Mönchengladbach, Germany.
''The Sicilian Defence''
In 1979, Parsons, Woolfson, and their
record label
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...
Arista, had been stalled in contract renegotiations when the two submitted an all-instrumental album tentatively titled ''
The Sicilian Defence'', named after an
aggressive opening move in chess, arguably to get out of their
recording contract. Arista's refusal to release the album had two known effects: the negotiations led to a renewed contract, and the album was not released at that time.
In interviews he gave before his death in 2009, Woolfson said he planned to release one track from the "Sicilian" album, which in 2008 appeared as a bonus track on a CD re-issue of the ''
Eve'' album. Sometime later, after he had relocated the original tapes, Parsons reluctantly agreed to release the album and announced that it would finally be released on an upcoming Project box set called ''The Complete Albums Collection'' in 2014 for the first time as a bonus disc.
Parsons' and Woolfson's solo careers
Parsons released titles under his name; these were ''
Try Anything Once
''Try Anything Once'' is the first solo album by Alan Parsons, released in 1993. It was his first album following the split of The Alan Parsons Project.
This album features vocals by Ambrosia's David Pack, Jacqui Copland, former Mindbender a ...
'' (1993), ''
On Air'' (1996), ''
The Time Machine
''The Time Machine'' is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895. The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively for ...
'' (1999), ''
A Valid Path
''A Valid Path'' is the fourth solo album by English rock musician Alan Parsons. The record was released on 24 August 2004 via Artemis label.
Background
The gap between this and his previous album, '' The Time Machine'', was the third greatest ...
'' (2004) and ''
The Secret'' (2019). Meanwhile, Woolfson made
concept albums titled ''
Freudiana'' (1990), about
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...
's work on
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...
, and ''
Poe: More Tales of Mystery and Imagination'' (2003); this continued from the Alan Parsons Project's first album about Edgar Allan Poe's literature.
''Tales of Mystery and Imagination'' (1976) was
re-mixed in 1987 for release on CD, and included narration by
Orson Welles recorded in 1975, but delivered too late to be included on the original album. For the 2007 deluxe edition release, parts of this tape were used for the 1976 Griffith Park Planetarium launch of the original album, the 1987 remix, and various radio spots. All were included as bonus material.
Sound
The band's sound is described as
progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. In ...
,
art rock,
progressive pop,
and
soft rock. "
Sirius" is their best-known and most-frequently heard of all Parsons/Woolfson songs. It was used as entrance music by various American sports teams, notably by the
Chicago Bulls
The Chicago Bulls are an American professional basketball team based in Chicago. The Bulls compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central Division. The team was founded on January ...
during their 1990s
NBA dynasty
A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family,''Oxford English Dictionary'', "dynasty, ''n''." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1897. usually in the context of a monarchical system, but sometimes also appearing in republics. A ...
. It was also used as the entrance theme for
Ricky Steamboat in pro wrestling of the mid-1980s. In addition, "Sirius" is played in a variety of TV shows and movies including the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
''.
Vocal duties were shared by guests to complement each song. In later years, Woolfson sang lead on many of the group's hits, including "Time", "Eye in the Sky", and "Don't Answer Me". The record company pressured Parsons to use Woolfson more, but Parsons preferred to use polished proficient singers; Woolfson admitted he was not in that category. In addition to Woolfson, vocalists
are regulars.
's Dean Ford, recorded only once or twice with the Project. Parsons sang lead on one song ("
and backing on a few others, including "To One in Paradise". Both of those songs appeared on ''
'' (1976). Parsons also sings a prominent counter melody on “Time”.
A variety of session musicians worked with the Alan Parsons Project regularly, contributing to the recognizable style of a song despite the varied singer line-up. With Parsons and Woolfson, the studio band consisted of the group
(drums).
contributed. From ''
. Bairnson played on all albums, and Paton stayed almost until the end.
'' (1985). This score was partly in the APP style, recorded by most of the APP regulars, and produced and engineered by Parsons. Powell composed some material for the first two Project albums. For ''Vulture Culture'' and later, Richard Cottle played as a regular contributor on synthesizers and saxophone.
The Alan Parsons Project played live only once under that name during its original incarnation because Woolfson and Parsons held the roles of writing and production, and because of the technical difficulties of re-producing on stage the complex instrumentation used in the studio. In the 1990s, musical production evolved with the technology of digital samplers. The one occasion the band was introduced as 'The Alan Parsons Project' in a live performance was at The Night of the Proms in October 1990. The concerts featured all Project regulars except Woolfson, present behind the scenes, while Parsons stayed at the mixer except for the last song, when he played acoustic guitar.
Since 1993, Alan Parsons continues to perform live as the Alan Parsons Live Project to be distinct from The Alan Parsons Project. The current line up consists of lead singer
, vocalist and saxophonist Todd Cooper, and guitarist and vocalist Dan Tracey. In 2013, Alan Parsons Live Project played
Philharmonic) as 'Alan Parsons Symphonic Project'. A 2-CD live set and a DVD version of this concert were released in May 2016.