By Ralph Greco, Jr.
Though the famous Pink Floyd/Beatles engineer Alan Parsons’ name was the one on the project, The Alan Parsons Project was really a partnership. The other “guy” — a name you may not know as well as Parsons’ but was every bit as important to the Project’s sound, songwriting and vocals — was Eric Woolfson.
Recent reissues of classic Alan Parsons Project albums — all remastered and filled with unreleased demos and songs — but Mr. Woolfson, who has worked with notables too many too name, has a history in English rock music and stage musicals as well as a tenure with EMI-Abbey Road Studios, not many could match.
The man is a composer of considerable note, in his time before APP writing songs for Marianne Faithful, The Tremoloes and others, managing Carl Douglas of “Kung Fu Fighting” fame, all those scores of songs with APP, and musicals like Freudiana, Gambler and Gaudi.
More recently, Mr. Woolfson is working on his “Edgar Allan Poe” musical, based on the life of his ‘greatest inspiration,’ a story he has tackled more than once in his long career. A gentleman of unprecedented “gentlemaness,” not to mention yards of talent, he was kind enough to answer a few of my fumbling questions.
Can you tell me about your new musical Edgar Allan Poe and its premiere in Berlin? Is this the combination of your two previous Poe albums, and/or staging of the musical based on Poe’s life you have done previously?
The Edgar Allan Poe musical contains none of the music from the first APP recording, Tales Of Mystery And Imagination. However, the musical does contain much material that I wanted to include in a volume two or volume three. The reason the APP didn’t record this new material was due to the fact that the first APP record contract was, quite unusually, for a single album. We then moved to another label for a nine album deal and when I discussed my ideas for the next product, I naturally mentioned Tales 2. They responded that as they did not want Tales 2 — they preferred something entirely different and I had to wait many years to complete the work inspired by my great creative hero, Edgar Allan Poe. The songs from More Tales, which was released under my name, are included in the musical.
The date for the premiere has been put back as the producers unfortunately ran into financial problems on another show and my publishers had to refuse them a license. There are discussions at the moment on alternatives and hopefully, there will be further news in the not-too-distant future. We are planning to release a CD and a DVD of the Abbey Road Showcase of the Edgar Allan Poe musical we filmed and details will be posted on my Web site (See www.ericwoolfsonmusic.com).
I saw on your Web site a CD called Eric Woolfson Sings The Alan Parsons Project That Never Was? Was there actually an Alan Parsons Project that never was? I am assuming being in a band that long, there must have been a lot of stuff left undone?
It is no secret that Alan and I didn’t always agree about what material the APP should record. This is not a criticism, merely a reflection of the fact that people have different tastes and many of my compositions were either “left by the wayside” or formed the basis of incomplete recordings. Some of these attempts were used as bonus tracks on the recently released, re-mastered/expanded editions of the APP and I have begun the task of completing the songs and recording vocals, etc. The Alan Parsons Project That Never Was is the first CD of up to four.
There was an unreleased experimental album called The Sicilian Defence, named after a classic opening in the game of chess. One of these instrumental pieces is now included as a bonus track on the Eve album. I have called it “Elsie’s Theme” after my newest granddaughter. I am currently working on a lyric and hope to include it on the next Project That Never Was CD together with another piece from the unreleased Sicilian Defence.
Incidentally, the APP was never a ‘band’ in the conventional sense. The idea was to make recordings much as Kubrick of Hitchcock made movies, where the production values ere the key rather than star actors. I thought at the time that many others would follow in our footsteps but this didn’t happen and though the Project consisted officially of Alan and myself, we did use guest musicians and there is a misconception that there was an actual band.
Concerning the recent spate of those APP reissues, I see that Parsons was involved in the remastering and you in unearthing bonus material. Do you have the proverbial ‘box in the attic’ of old tapes? How did you decide what alternate demo versions to include and where did you find them?
I think the previous answer covers most of this but I would just add that when Tim Fraser-Harding of Sony Records approached me some three years ago to ask if I had unreleased material, my first reaction was that there might be some but not much. However, the more I looked, the more I found. Yes, there is literally a cupboard in an office full of all the original old tapes and we had to bake and transfer hundreds of them to find these hidden gems.
I happened to see Alan Parsons in concert in recent years, but have always been disappointed I never saw the original band — with you, of course — play live. Treading lightly here, was this an area of disagreement between the two of you, or did you have no desire to mount a big tour way back when?
The original problem was that having called it The Alan Parsons Project, Alan’s role was as engineer/producer and sitting behind a desk pushing faders, is not exactly riveting entertainment! When we were making the recordings, Alan had no enthusiasm for live performances but when we finished our contractual obligations to the record company, he developed an appetite to perform with a live band. I was involved with writing musicals by then and although some years later I did have an idea to do some live Abbey Road concerts with the original musicians, for one reason or another it didn’t happen.
I’m sure Vintage Rock readers would want to know and I’m dying to ask will there ever be a true Alan Parsons Project reunion for possibly new music…or even a life show? I’d love to see guys like Ian Bairnson or Stuart Elliot play alongside you in a live tour setting (and hear you sing, of course!)
Alan, at one stage, did use some of the original musicians such as Ian and Stuart Elliot, but I understand he now just works with a new group of musicians, none of whom played on any APP recordings. I suppose a kind of ‘tribute band to a band that never was!’ Performing on stage is something I’d rather leave to others, particularly musical performers in the case of my latest work.
Seeing all the notable musicians you’ve worked with and having, I dare say, a home base at EMI studios, gives you a distinction that very few people can claim. I know I am asking a lot here, but do you have any one overall memory of those mid 70s times? Does one session, one show, one of your performances or one artist stand out for you?
Abbey Road is indeed a magical place for me. I am constantly uplifted each time I go there and there are so many memories of the recordings we made together. Of course there were outstanding moments. Arthur Brown’s vocal on “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Colin Blunstone’s vocal on “Old And Wise,” all of Ian Bairnson’s guitar solos, Andrew Powell’s magnificent orchestrations and so much more.
We did enjoy the luxury that few artists can afford now of being able to book the studios for months on end. The quality of the APP recordings was paramount and there were no restrictions on time. We took as long as we needed and the final result was a series of albums whose sheer quality has stood the test of time and to me they sound as marvelous as the eagerly awaited final playback when all our work was done and we sat back in the control room and listened to the final mixes carefully edited together to form each thematic album.
I would observe that in those days, this final playback was a unique experience as the recordings never sounded as good again. Whether this was due to the excellence of the studio playback system or the shortcomings of the manufacturing process which often compromised the quality of the recordings, I never expected to hear that magic again. Fortunately with the advances in technology in the mastering process, it is now possible to hear these recordings in their full glory at home and the re-mastered/expanded editions have achieved an excellence of sound that is astonishing. This is not self-praise as I am not technically minded at all and Alan was the one who supervised the remastering process.
Though I think your voice is very distinctive, I’m sure you see yourself as much more then a vocalist considering all you do and have done. If you had to use one word to describe yourself professionally would it be composer, producer, or does it all fall under the umbrella of musician?
That’s easy. First and foremost, I am a songwriter. I also play some piano and sing some vocals.
Is there any one APP album you’re most especially proud of?
Picking a favorite is almost like being asked ‘who is your favorite child?’ Of course, I’m enormously proud of them all but there was something special about our first album, Tales Of Mystery And Imagination and I think that on Eye In The Sky, we were firing on all cylinders and things really came together on that album in a special way.
