Before starting his own Project, Alan Parsons worked as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road Studios, earning his first album credit on the Beatles’ Abbey Road. He went on to engineer records with John Miles, the Hollies, Al Stewart, and Pink Floyd. He is particularly renowned for his sonic contributions to Floyd’s 1973 masterpiece The Dark Side Of The Moon.
In 1975, The Alan Parsons Project was formed with producer and songwriter (and occasional singer) Eric Woolfson. Together, Parsons and Woolfson released 10 highly acclaimed studio albums, rarely performing live. The Project ended at the end of the 1980. Since then, Parsons has released four albums under his name, and in 2003, started touring regularly as the Alan Parsons Live Project.
On the CD/DVD set The NeverEnding Show: Live In The Netherlands, the Alan Parsons Live Project performs a sprawling set at the Tivoli in Utrecht, Netherlands. Surrounded by a cast of musicians and singers, Parsons stands upstage center, manning acoustic guitar most of the night and presiding over his crack-jack eight-man unit as they manage recreations.
From “Damned If I Do,” “Time,” and spirited versions of “Don’t Answer Me,” and “Psychobabble,” through older pieces like “The Raven” and “(The System Of) Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether,” both from 1976’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination: Edgar Allan Poe.
This is an expansive 20-song set that ends with a studio recording of a jaunty whistle-led, quite Beatlesque “The NeverEnding Show,” supposedly from the studio album that Alan Parsons is working on. Until then, the live portion is enough to convince anyone that Alan Parsons has had an incredible career as an engineer, producer, songwriter and musician.
~ Ralph Greco, Jr.
