''Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Edgar Allan Poe)'' is the debut

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records c ...

by British rock band

The Alan Parsons Project 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. They were accompan ...

. It was released on 25 June 1976 in the United Kingdom by

Charisma Records Charisma Records (also known as The Famous Charisma Label) was a British record label founded in 1969 by former journalist Tony Stratton-Smith. He had previously acted as manager for rock bands such as The Nice, the Bonzo Dog Band and Van d ...

. The lyrical and musical themes of the album, which are retellings of horror stories and poetry by

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 ...

, attracted a cult audience. The title of the album is taken from the title of a collection of Poe's macabre stories of the same name. Musicians featured on the album include vocalists

Arthur Brown Arthur Brown may refer to: Entertainment * Arthur William Brown (1881–1966), Canadian commercial artist * H. Arthur Brown (1906–1992), American orchestral conductor * Arthur Brown (musician) (born 1942), English rock singer * Arthur Brown, ak ...

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown The Crazy World of Arthur Brown are an English rock band formed by singer Arthur Brown in 1967. The original band included Vincent Crane ( Hammond organ and piano), Drachen Theaker (drums), and Nick Greenwood (bass). This early incarnation w ...

on "The Tell Tale Heart", John Miles on "The Cask of Amontillado" and "(The System of) Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether", and

Terry Sylvester Terence Sylvester (born 8 January 1947) is an English musician and songwriter. He is a former member of the Escorts, the Swinging Blue Jeans (1966–1969), and the Hollies. In the latter role, he took on the high parts formerly sung by Graham ...

The Hollies The Hollies are a British pop rock band, formed in 1962. One of the leading British groups of the 1960s and into the mid-1970s, they are known for their distinctive three-part vocal harmony style. Allan Clarke and Graham Nash founded the band ...

on "To One in Paradise". The complete line-up of bands

Ambrosia In the ancient Greek myths, ''ambrosia'' (, grc, ἀμβροσία 'immortality'), the food or drink of the Greek gods, is often depicted as conferring longevity or immortality upon whoever consumed it. It was brought to the gods in Olympus ...

and Pilot play on the record, along with keyboardist

Francis Monkman Francis Monkman (born 9 June 1949, in Hampstead, North London, England) is an English rock, classical and film score composer, and a founding member of both the progressive rock band Curved Air and the classical/rock fusion band Sky. He is ...

Curved Air Curved Air are an English progressive rock group formed in 1970 by musicians from mixed artistic backgrounds, including classical, folk, and electronic sound. The resulting sound of the band is a mixture of progressive rock, folk rock, and ...

and Sky. ''Tales of Mystery and Imagination'' peaked at #38 on ''Billboard'''s Pop Albums chart. The song "(The System Of) Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" peaked at No. 37 on the Pop Singles chart, and No. 62 in Canada.

Composition

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 ...

" features 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 ...

on lead vocals, with

Alan Parsons Alan Parsons (born 20 December 1948) is an English audio engineer, songwriter, musician and record producer. Parsons was involved with the production of several notable albums, including the Beatles' ''Abbey Road'' (1969) and ''Let It Be'' ( ...

performing vocals through an EMI

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 ...

. According to the album's liner notes, "The Raven" was the first rock song to feature a digital vocoder. The prelude section of "The Fall of the House of Usher", although uncredited, is taken verbatim from the opera fragment " La chute de la maison Usher" by

Claude Debussy (Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most infl ...

which was composed between 1908 and 1917. "The Fall of the House of Usher" is an instrumental suite which runs more than 16 minutes and takes up most of Side 2 of the recording.

Artwork

The album's cover art was made by

Hipgnosis Hipgnosis were an English art design group based in London, that specialised in creating album cover artwork for rock musicians and bands. Their commissions included work for Pink Floyd, T. Rex, the Pretty Things, Black Sabbath, UFO, 10c ...

Storm Thorgerson Storm Elvin Thorgerson (28 February 1944 – 18 April 2013) was an English graphic designer and music video director. He is best known for closely working with the group Pink Floyd through most of their career, and also created album or other ar ...

said that

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. ...

and Parsons wanted a "classy" design, including a book of lyrics, lengthy credits and a chronology of Poe's life. He described the recurring image of the "taped" man:

Poe was preoccupied with entombment. Many of his characters have been incarcerated in some form or other – in coffins, brick walls or under floorboards. We came up with the 'taped' man – a mummy-like figure who is wrapped, not in bandages, but in 2" recording tape. This motif is partially horror-like, as well as being 'entombed', and the 2" tape appropriately suggests that the album is done by a producer in a studio, as opposed to a band recording material they will play on stage. Although the clients were intrigued by this idea they did not desire a pictorial cover but preferred instead a precise graphic representation. The narrow strip of illustration from George ardieshows a long shadow of the taped man. The booklet (attached to the inside of the cover) is composed of photos related to the songs, and line drawings which explore the taped man as he thrashes about in his restricted world and strives to unravel himself. The illustrated capital letters continue the idea. The layout and drawings are by Colin Elgie. The sleeve is one of our better attempts at combining photographs and illustration.

Reception

Critical reaction to the album was mixed: ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

's'' Billy Altman concluded it did not completely accurately reproduce Poe's tension and macabre fear, ending by saying "devotees of Gothic literature will have to wait for someone with more of the macabre in their blood for a truer musical reading of Poe's often terrifying works." Nonetheless, the album has still garnered somewhat of a cult status amongst Alan Parsons Project fans. In July 2010, the album was named as one of ''

Classic Rock magazine ''Classic Rock'' is a British magazine and website dedicated to rock music, owned and published by Future. It was launched in October 1998 and is based in London. The magazine publishes 13 editions a year, mainly covering rock bands from the 60, ...

's "50 Albums That Built Prog Rock".

Reissues

Originally simply called ''The Alan Parsons Project'', the album was successful enough to achieve gold status. The identity of The Alan Parsons Project as a group was cemented on the second album, '' I Robot'', in 1977. The original version of the album was available for several years on vinyl and cassette, but was not immediately available on CD (the CD technology not being commercially available until 1982). In 1987, Parsons completely remixed the album, including additional keyboard and guitar passages and narration (by

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...

) as well as updating the production style to include heavy

reverb Reverberation (also known as reverb), in acoustics, is a persistence of sound, after a sound is produced. Reverberation is created when a sound or signal is reflected causing numerous reflections to build up and then decay as the sound is abs ...

and the gated reverb snare drum sound, which was popular in the 1980s. He also made the end of side A segue into the start of side B due to the remix of the album being released when CD's were commercially available, thus no need to stop playback to change sides. The CD notes that Welles never met Parsons or Eric Woolfson, but sent a tape to them of the performance shortly after the album was manufactured in 1976. The first passage narrated by Welles on the 1987 remix (which comes before the first track, "A Dream Within a Dream") is sourced from an obscure nonfiction piece by Poe – No XVI of his ''Marginalia'' (from 1845 to 1849 Edgar Allan Poe titled some of his reflections and fragmentary material "Marginalia.") The second passage Welles reads (which comes before "The Fall of the House of Usher" (Prelude), seems to be a partial paraphrase or composite from nonfiction by Poe, chiefly from a collection of poems titled "Poems of Youth" by Poe (contained in "Introduction to Poems – 1831" in a section titled "Letter to Mr. B-----------"; the "Shadows of shadows passing" part of the quote comes from the ''Marginalia''. In 1994,

Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL or MoFi) is a record label specializing in the production of audiophile issues. The company produces reissued vinyl LP records, compact discs, and Super Audio CDs and other formats. History Recording engineer Br ...

(MFSL) released the original 1976 version on CD (UDCD-606), making the original available digitally for the first time. In 2007, a Deluxe Edition released by

Universal Music Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch–American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and it ...

included both the 1976 and the 1987 versions remastered by Alan Parsons during 2006 with eight additional bonus tracks. In 2016, a 40th Anniversary Edition 3CD/1BD was released, featuring both 2007 Deluxe Edition CDs, a third disc with demos, outtakes, and other tracks, and a Blu-ray featuring a 5.1 surround sound version of the album remixed by Alan Parsons in 2016.

Remakes

A variant of the song "The Raven" appears on the

album ''Edgar Allan Poe'' (2009), which contains the complete music from Woolfson's 2003 stage musical of the same name. The variant track does not appear on Woolfson's 2003 CD '' Poe: More Tales of Mystery and Imagination'', which was a highly abridged version of the stage musical. On the variant, the bass line and keyboard chords of the original ''Tales of Mystery and Imagination'' track are heard, but they are quieter, do not feature a vocoder, and instead of an abridged version of the Poe poem being sung, the Woolfson version features a fuller spoken dramatic reading of the poem. The Alan Parsons album ''

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 ...

'' includes "A Recurring Dream Within a Dream", a composite of "A Dream Within a Dream" and "The Raven" incorporating

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electro ...

influences.

Slough Feg Slough Feg (also known as The Lord Weird Slough Feg) is an American heavy metal band from Pennsylvania, formed in 1990 and currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Taking their name from the Celtic folklore-influenced comic book Sláine ...

covered "The Tell-Tale Heart" for their 2010 album '' The Animal Spirits''.

Track listing

' narration does not appear on the original 1976 mix of the album. It does, however, on the 1987 remix: specifically on "A Dream Within a Dream", and on the extended Prelude of "The Fall of the House of Usher".

2007 deluxe edition

Disc 1: Tracks 1–11, original album in original 1976 mix

"The Raven" (original demo)
"Edgar" (demo of an unreleased track)
"Orson Welles Radio Spot"
"Interview with Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson" (1976)

Disc 2: Tracks 1–11, original album in 1987 remix

"Eric's Guide Vocal Medley"
"Orson Welles Dialogue"
"Sea Lions in the Departure Lounge" (sound effects and experiments)
"GBH Mix" (unreleased experiments)

Personnel

Track numbers in parenthesis. *

– EMI vocoder , Projectron synthesizer , recorder , additional vocals , synthesizer , cathedral organ producer, engineer *

– keyboards , backing vocals , harpsichord , organ , additional vocals , synthesizer executive producer *

Andrew Powell Andrew Powell (born 18 April 1949) is an English musical composer, arranger and performer, born of Welsh parents. He himself moved to Wales in 2003. Early life Powell was born Surrey, England. He began piano lessons at the age of four and late ...

– orchestral arrangement , orchestral conductor , keyboards , organ *

– organ , harpsichord *

Billy Lyall William Lyall (26 March 1953 – 1 December 1989) was a Scottish musician, known for his work with Pilot, The Alan Parsons Project, and the Bay City Rollers. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Lyall was a singer, keyboard player and flautist with ...

– keyboards , recorder , piano ,

Fender Rhodes The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, t ...

electric piano , glockenspiel * Christopher North – keyboards *

– narration *

– lead vocals , narration *

– lead vocals * John Miles – lead vocals , electric guitar *

Jack Harris Jack Harris may refer to: Entertainment * Jack Harris (film editor) (1905–1971), English film editor * Jack H. Harris (1918–2017), American film producer * Jack Harris (broadcaster) (born 1941), American radio personality based in Tampa, Flor ...

– additional vocals *

– additional vocals , lead vocals *Jane Powell – backing vocals *Smokey Parsons – vocals *Bob Howes & the English Chorale – choir * Westminster City School Boys Choir – choir *

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 ...

– acoustic guitar , backing vocals , bass guitar *

Kevin Peek Kevin Peek (21 December 1946 – 11 February 2013) was an Australian guitarist, playing both rock and classical music, best known for his work with the progressive rock band Sky. He was born in Adelaide, South Australia, and initially played ...

– acoustic guitar * Laurence Juber – acoustic guitar *

Ian Bairnson Ian Bairnson (born 3 August 1953 as ''John Bairnson'') is a Scottish musician, best known for being one of the core members of The Alan Parsons Project. He is a multi-instrumentalist, who has played saxophone and keyboards, although he is best ...

– electric guitar , acoustic guitar *

David Pack David Robert Pack (born July 15, 1952) is an American singer and musician who co-founded the rock band Ambrosia in the 1970s. Career As performer Pack was co-founder, guitarist and main vocalist for the band Ambrosia. His collected works as a ...

– electric guitar *

Joe Puerta Joe Puerta (born 2 July 1951, California, US) is the bassist/vocalist and founder of the American rock group Ambrosia. He co-wrote one of the band's early hits, "Holdin' On To Yesterday" (1975). He was a touring member (bass/vocals) of the bands ...

– bass guitar *Les Hurdle – bass guitar *

Daryl Runswick Daryl Runswick (born 12 October 1946) is a classically trained English composer, arranger, jazz musician, producer and educationalist. Career Runswick was born in Leicester, and educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys and Corpus Christi Co ...

– double bass *David Katz – violin, orchestra leader , orchestra contractor *Jack Rothstein – orchestra leader * David Snell – harp *Hugo D'Alton – mandolin * Stuart Tosh – drums , timpani , backwards cymbals *

Burleigh Drummond Burleigh Drummond (born September 25, 1951) is an American drummer, percussionist, producer, songwriter, and singer. He is a founding member and the only drummer/percussionist for the five-time Grammy Award nominated band Ambrosia. He currently ...

– drums *John Leach – cimbalom , kantele

Production staff

*Gordon Parry – engineer *Tony Richards – assistant engineer *Chris Blair – assistant engineer *Tom Trefethen – assistant engineer *Pat Stapley – assistant engineer *

Peter Christopherson Peter Martin Christopherson (also known as Sleazy, 27 February 1955 – 25 November 2010) was an English musician, video director, commercial artist, designer and photographer, and former member of British design agency Hipgnosis. He also fou ...

– photography *

Aubrey Powell Aubrey Powell may refer to: *Aubrey Powell (designer) Aubrey Powell (born 23 September 1946) is a British graphic designer. He co-founded the album cover design company Hipgnosis with Storm Thorgerson in 1967. The company ran for 15 years unt ...

– photography *

– photography *Sam Emerson – photography *

– design, cover art *Colin Elgie – artwork, graphic design, layout design

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tales of Mystery And Imagination The Alan Parsons Project albums 20th Century Fox Records albums 1976 debut albums Albums with cover art by Hipgnosis Concept albums Albums produced by Alan Parsons Charisma Records albums Mercury Records albums Music based on works by Edgar Allan Poe