Alan Parsons | |
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![]() Parsons in 2017 | |
Background information | |
Born | Willesden, London, England | 20 December 1948
Genres | Rock, progressive rock |
Occupation(s) | Audio engineer, composer, musician, record producer, director |
Instrument(s) | Guitar, keyboards, bass, vocals, flute |
Years active | 1967–present |
Labels | Legacy, Arista, Fox, Mercury, Frontiers [1] |
Formerly of | The Alan Parsons Project |
Spouse(s) | Lisa Parsons |
Website | alanparsons |
Alan Parsons OBE (born 20 December 1948) [2] is an English audio engineer, songwriter, musician and record producer.
Parsons was the sound engineer on albums including the Beatles' Abbey Road (1969) and Let It Be (1970), Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), and the eponymous debut album by Ambrosia in 1975. Parsons's own group, the Alan Parsons Project, as well as his subsequent solo recordings, have also been commercially successful. He has been nominated for 13 Grammy Awards, with his first win occurring in 2019 for Best Immersive Audio Album for Eye in the Sky (35th Anniversary Edition). [3]
After getting a job working in the tape duplication department at EMI, Parsons heard the master tape for the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band , and decided to try talking his way into a job at Abbey Road Studios. In October 1967, at the age of 18, Parsons went to work as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road. He was a tape operator during the Beatles' Get Back sessions, [4] and he earned his first credit on the LP Abbey Road . He became a regular there, engineering such projects as Wings' Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway , five albums by the Hollies and Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon , for which he received his first Grammy Awards nomination.
"It was a bit of a frustration for me that I didn't get all the engineering credit", Parsons remarked of Dark Side of the Moon, "because Chris [Thomas] came in as mixing supervisor… I had been working on the album for a year and I obviously knew it inside-out by the mixing stage… There were times when I thought Chris was wrong, particularly about the use of limiting and compression on the mix, which I've never been a fan of… Although, later, I got the opportunity to mix the album the way I wanted when I did the quadraphonic version." [5]
In his work with Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat", Parsons added the saxophone part and transformed the original folk concept into the jazz-influenced ballad that put Stewart onto the charts. [6]
Parsons also produced three albums by Pilot, a Scottish pop rock band, whose hits included "January" and "Magic". He also mixed the debut album by the American band Ambrosia and produced their second album, Somewhere I've Never Travelled . Parsons was nominated for a Grammy Award for both albums. [7]
In 1975, he declined Pink Floyd's invitation to work on Wish You Were Here – the follow-up to Dark Side – and instead initiated the Alan Parsons Project with producer, songwriter, and occasional singer Eric Woolfson, whom he had met at Abbey Road. The Project consisted of a revolving group of studio musicians and vocalists, most notably the members of Pilot and (on the first album) the members of Ambrosia. Unlike most rock groups, the Alan Parsons Project never performed live during its heyday, although it did release several music videos. Its only live performance during its original incarnation was in 1990. It released ten albums, the last in 1987. The Project terminated in 1990 after Parsons and Woolfson split, with the Project's intended 11th album released that year as a Woolfson solo album. Parsons continued to release work in his own name and in collaboration with other musicians. Parsons and his band regularly toured many parts of the world.
Although an accomplished vocalist, keyboardist, bassist, guitarist and flautist, Parsons only sang infrequent and incidental parts on his albums, such as the background vocals on "Time". While his keyboard playing was very audible on the Alan Parsons Project albums, very few recordings feature his flute. He briefly returned to run Abbey Road Studios in its entirety. Parsons also continued with his selective production work for other bands.
Of all his collaborators, guitarist Ian Bairnson worked with Parsons the longest, including Parsons' post-Project albums: Try Anything Once , On Air , The Time Machine and The Secret .
Chris Thompson joined Alan Parsons' band for his first solo album after the split of The Alan Parsons Project and was also one of the two frontmen on the ensuing tour, which was captured on the album Alan Parsons Live . For the U.S. release of this album in 1995 (retitled The Very Best Live), the band added three new studio recordings, recorded in February 1995. One of these was "You're the Voice", which marked the first time a version featuring the original songwriter (Thompson) had been released. "You're the Voice" was then performed at the World Liberty Concert in May 1995 by The Alan Parsons Band, Chris Thompson, and Metropole Orkest. The only official release associated with that concert was a single, featuring a radio edit of the live version of "You're the Voice" (faded out after four minutes). The B-side was a live recording of "White Dawn", which was performed by the Metropole Orkest and Gelders Opera and Operetta Gezelschap (GOOG) choir. The song was arranged by Andrew Powell and conducted by Dick Bakker.[ citation needed ]
In 1998, Parsons became vice president of EMI Studios Group, including the Abbey Road Studios. He soon left the post, deciding to return to more creative endeavours. Parsons remained as a creative consultant and associate producer for the group.
As well as receiving gold and platinum awards from many nations, Parsons has received thirteen Grammy Award nominations. In 2006, he was nominated for Best Surround Sound Album for A Valid Path . In 2019, he won his first Grammy Award for Best immersive Audio Album for his remastered 35th anniversary edition of Eye in the Sky. [8]
Beginning in 2001 and extending for four years, Parsons led a Beatles tribute show called A Walk Down Abbey Road featuring performers such as Todd Rundgren, Ann Wilson of Heart, John Entwistle of the Who and Jack Bruce of Cream. The show structure included a first set where all the musicians assembled to perform each other's hits, and a second set featuring all Beatles songs.
Since 1999, he has toured as the Alan Parsons Live Project (with Woolfson's permission). The band currently features lead singer P. J. Olsson, guitarist Jeff Kollman, drummer Danny Thompson, keyboardist Tom Brooks, bass guitarist Guy Erez, vocalist and saxophonist Todd Cooper, guitarist and vocalist Dan Tracey, along with Parsons on rhythm guitar, keyboards and vocals. [9] This band performed live in Medellín, Colombia, in 2013 as Alan Parsons Symphonic Project in a performance recorded for Colombian television and also released on CD (live 2-CD) and DVD (May 2016).
In May 2005, Parsons appeared at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, California, to mix front-of-house sound for Southern California-based Pink Floyd tribute band Which One's Pink? as they performed The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety. [10]
In 2010, Parsons released his single "All Our Yesterdays" through Authentik Artists. [11] Parsons also launched a DVD educational series in 2010, titled The Art and Science of Sound Recording (ASSR) on music production and the complete audio recording process. The single "All Our Yesterdays" was written and recorded during the making of ASSR. The series, narrated by Billy Bob Thornton, gives detailed tutorials on virtually every aspect of the sound recording process. [12]
During 2010, several media reports [13] [14] (one of which included a quote from a representative of Parsons), [15] alleged that the song "Need You Now" by country music group Lady Antebellum used the melody and arrangement of "Eye in the Sky".
Parsons produced Jake Shimabukuro's album Grand Ukulele , which was released on 2 October 2012. Also in 2012, he contributed lead vocals and performed keyboards and guitar on the track "Precious Life" by German electronic music duo Lichtmond, and appeared with many other noted progressive-rock musicians on The Prog Collective album by Billy Sherwood, singing lead on "The Technical Divide".
Parsons engineered the third solo album by Steven Wilson, The Raven that Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) , released on 25 February 2013.
In late 2013, a live album recorded on tour in Germany and Austria with the title LiveSpan was released, accompanied by a single called "Fragile" with Simon Philips on drums.
Legacy Recordings, the catalogue division of Sony Music Entertainment, celebrated the 35th anniversary of Eye in the Sky with the worldwide release of a definitive deluxe collector's box set, featuring rare and unreleased material, on 17 November 2017.
On 19 July 2018, Parsons and engineer Noah Bruskin opened a new recording studio, ParSonics. ParSonics was used in the recording of Alan Parsons’ album, The Secret . [16] [17]
On 26 April 2019, Parsons released a new studio album, The Secret, his first album in 15 years. [18]
On 15 July 2022, Parsons released a new studio album, From the New World. [19]
His father was Denys Parsons, the grandson of the actor Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. Denys Parsons was a scientist, a film maker, and the press officer for the British Library, as well as a talented pianist and flautist. He developed the Parsons Code as a means of classifying musical melody and was the author of The Directory of Tunes and Musical Themes (1975, revised 2008). [32] [33] [34]
Parsons resides in Santa Barbara, California, USA. He has two sons from his first marriage. He is married to Lisa Griffiths; they have two daughters. [2] [35]
Date | Title | Label | Charted | Country | Catalog number |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
as part of the Alan Parsons Project | |||||
May 1976 | Tales of Mystery and Imagination | Mercury | 38 | US | |
June 1977 | I Robot | Arista | 9 | US | SPARTY 1012 |
June 1978 | Pyramid | Arista | 26 | US | |
August 1979 | Eve | Arista | 13 | US | |
November 1980 | The Turn of a Friendly Card | Arista | 13 | US | AL 9518 (US LP) ARCD 8226 (US CD) |
June 1982 | Eye in the Sky | Arista | 7 | US | |
1983 | The Best of the Alan Parsons Project | Arista | 53 | US | |
December 1983 | Ammonia Avenue | Arista | 15 | US | |
February 1985 | Vulture Culture | Arista | 46 | US | |
November 1985 | Stereotomy | Arista | 43 | US | |
January 1987 | Gaudi | Arista | 57 | US | |
1988 | The Best of the Alan Parsons Project, Vol. 2 | Arista | – | – | |
1988 | The Instrumental Works | Arista | – | – | |
1990 | Freudiana | EMI | – | – | |
9 October 1989 | Pop Classics | Arista | – | – | |
1995 (6/2004) | Extended Versions: The Encore Collection Live | – | – | ||
15 July 1997 | The Definitive Collection | – | – | ||
27 July 1999 | Master Hits - The Alan Parsons Project | – | – | ||
2 August 1999 | Alan Parsons Project - Greatest Hits Live = Best of Live | – | – | ||
3 August 1999 | Eye in the Sky – Encore Collection | – | – | ||
9 May 2000 | Alan Parsons Project - Gold Collection | BMG International | – | – | |
22 August 2002 | Works | Audiophile Legends | – | – | |
23 March 2004 | Ultimate | – | – | ||
2006 | Days Are Numbers | Arista | – | – | 88697016972 |
2007 | The Essential (2 CD compilation) | Arista / Legacy | – | – | 88697043372 |
2010 | The Collection | Sony / Camden | 88697808482 | ||
23 March 2014 | The Sicilian Defence (part of The Complete Albums Collection) | Arista / Sony | – | – | 88697890552-11 |
as solo artist – studio albums | |||||
6 October 1993 | Try Anything Once | Arista | 122 | US | |
24 September 1996 | On Air | A&M/Digital Sound/River North | 78 | US | |
28 September 1999 | The Time Machine | Miramar | 71 | US | |
24 August 2004 | A Valid Path | Artemis | 34 | US | |
26 April 2019 | The Secret | Frontiers | US | ||
15 July 2022 | From the New World | Frontiers | US | ||
as solo artist – live albums | |||||
27 June 1995 | The Very Best Live | RCA | – | – | |
6 April 2010 | Eye 2 Eye: Live in Madrid | Frontiers | e | ||
Sept 2013 | Alan Parsons LiveSpan | MFP | |||
June 2016 | Alan Parsons Symphonic Project, Live in Colombia | earMusic | |||
5 November 2021 | The Neverending Show - Live in The Netherlands | Frontiers | |||
11 February 2022 | One Note Symphony – Live In Tel Aviv | Frontiers | |||
as solo artist – singles | |||||
15 June 2010 | All Our Yesterdays / Alpha Centauri (2010) | Authentik Artists, Inc. | |||
3 April 2014 | Fragile / Luciferama | Mfp Music Productions | |||
10 April 2015 | Do You Live at All | ||||
as engineer | |||||
1969 | Abbey Road (The Beatles) | Apple | 1 | UK US | |
1970 | Atom Heart Mother (Pink Floyd) | Harvest | 1 55 | UK US | |
1971 | Stormcock (Roy Harper) | Harvest | |||
1971 | Wild Life (Wings) | Apple | 10 11 | US UK | |
1973 | The Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd) | Harvest | 2 1 | UK US | |
1973 | Wizzard Brew (Wizzard) (Partial) | Harvest | 29 | UK | |
1973 | Red Rose Speedway (Paul McCartney and Wings) | Apple | 1 5 | US UK | |
1973 | Boulders (Roy Wood) (Partial) | Harvest | 15 | UK | |
1974 | Hollies (The Hollies) | Polydor (UK), Epic (US) | 28 | US | |
1975 | Another Night (The Hollies) | 132 | US | ||
1975 | Ambrosia (Ambrosia) | 20th Century | 22 | US | |
1976 | Year of the Cat (Al Stewart) | 5 | US | ||
1978 | Time Passages (Al Stewart) | 10 | US | ||
2013 | The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) (Steven Wilson) | Kscope | 28 | UK | |
as producer | |||||
1974 | From the Album of the Same Name (Pilot) | EMI | |||
1974 | The Psychomodo (Cockney Rebel) | EMI | |||
1975 | The Best Years of Our Lives (Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel) | – | – | ||
1975 | Second Flight (Pilot) | ||||
1975 | Modern Times (Al Stewart) | ||||
1976 | Rebel (John Miles) | 171 | US | ||
1976 | Year of the Cat (Al Stewart) | 5 | US | ||
1976 | Somewhere I've Never Travelled (Ambrosia) | 20th Century | 79 | US | |
1978 | Time Passages (Al Stewart) | 10 | US | ||
1979 | Lenny Zakatek (Lenny Zakatek) | A&M | US | ||
March 1984 | Keats | EMI | |||
1985 | Ladyhawke (OST by Andrew Powell) | Atlantic Records | |||
1993 | Symphonic Music of Yes | RCA | |||
2012 | Grand Ukulele (Jake Shimabukuro) | Mailboat Records | |||
2017 | Blackfield V (Blackfield) | Kscope | UK, Israel | ||
2019 | Jonathan Cilia Faro (Grown up Christmas List) | NewArias Production | USA, Italy | ||
as executive producer / mentor | |||||
1999 | Turning the Tide (Iconic Phare) | Carrera Records | – | – |
Parsons was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to music and music production. [36]
The Alan Parsons Project were 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 accompanied by varying session musicians and some relatively consistent session players such as guitarist Ian Bairnson, arranger Andrew Powell, bassist and vocalist David Paton, drummer Stuart Elliott, and vocalists Lenny Zakatek and Chris Rainbow. 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.
Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Edgar Allan Poe) is the debut studio album by British rock band the Alan Parsons Project. It was released on 25 June 1976 in the United Kingdom by Charisma Records and 20th Century Fox Records in the U.S. The lyrical and musical themes of the album, which are retellings of horror stories and poetry by Edgar Allan Poe, 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.
Ambrosia is an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1970. Ambrosia had five top 40 hit singles released between 1975 and 1980, including the top 5 hits "How Much I Feel" and "Biggest Part of Me", and top 20 hits "You're the Only Woman " and "Holdin' on to Yesterday". Most of the original band members have been active with the group continuously since their 1989 reformation to the present day, with the notable exception of original guitarist and lead vocalist David Pack who left in 2000.
Eric Norman Woolfson was a Scottish songwriter, lyricist, vocalist, executive producer, pianist, and co-creator of the band the Alan Parsons Project, who sold over 50 million albums worldwide. Woolfson also pursued a career in musical theatre.
I Robot is the second studio album by British rock band the Alan Parsons Project, released on 8 July 1977 by Arista Records. The album draws conceptually on author Isaac Asimov's science fiction Robot stories, exploring philosophical themes regarding artificial intelligence. It was re-released on vinyl and cassette tape in 1984 and on CD in 2017.
Eye in the Sky is the sixth studio album by British rock band the Alan Parsons Project, released in May 1982 by Arista Records. At the 25th Annual Grammy Awards in 1983, Eye in the Sky was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album. In 2019, the album won the Grammy Award for Best Immersive Audio Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards.
Pyramid is the third album by progressive rock band The Alan Parsons Project, released in May 1978. It is a concept album centred on the pyramids of Giza. At the time the album was conceived, interest in pyramid power and Tutankhamun was widespread in the US and the UK. Pyramid was nominated for the 1978 Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.
The Turn of a Friendly Card is the fifth studio album by the British progressive rock band the Alan Parsons Project, released in 1980 by Arista Records. The title piece, which appears on side 2 of the LP, is a 16-minute suite broken up into five tracks. The Turn of a Friendly Card spawned the hits "Games People Play" and "Time", the latter of which was Eric Woolfson's first lead vocal appearance. An edited version of the title piece combining the opening and ending parts of the suite was also released as a single along with an official video.
Stereotomy is the ninth studio album by the Alan Parsons Project, released in 1985.
Vulture Culture is the eighth studio album by the Alan Parsons Project, released in 1985 via the Arista label.
Gaudi is the tenth album by The Alan Parsons Project, released in 1987. Gaudi refers to Antoni Gaudí, the Catalan Spanish architect, and the opening track references what is probably Gaudí's best known building, the Sagrada Família.
Freudiana is a rock opera by Eric Woolfson. It was to be the 11th album by the Alan Parsons Project, but during its development, Woolfson had creative differences with Alan Parsons. The production, released in 1990, utilizes the Project's personnel as well as many guest vocalists.
"(The System of) Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether" is a 1976 single by the Alan Parsons Project. It first appeared on their debut album, Tales of Mystery and Imagination: Edgar Allan Poe. The single reached number 37 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 62 in Canada.
The Essential Alan Parsons Project is a compilation album released by English progressive rock musician Alan Parsons and The Alan Parsons Project on 6 February 2007. It was released through Sony BMG as part of The Essential album series. The album featured some of the band's best known songs as well as some rare tracks.
Eric Woolfson sings The Alan Parsons Project That Never Was is an album by the progressive rock musician Eric Woolfson, co-creator with Alan Parsons of The Alan Parsons Project, as well as main songwriter and manager of the band. Released in 2009, this was Woolfson's final album before he died of cancer in December of that year. The album includes songs that remained unreleased since the Project time for various reasons; however, as Woolfson himself remarks in the booklet, Parsons' dislike for some of Woolfson's compositions would have often caused them to be excluded from a Project album in its very early stages - such as, for example, "Steal Your Heart Away", an "unashamedly commercial" song with a conventionally sentimental lyric, which Parsons, in Woolfson's words, would have absolutely detested. "Somewhere in the Audience" and "Immortal" are slightly re-arranged and re-recorded versions of two of Woolfson's demos for his 2003 musical about Edgar Allan Poe; the final versions of these songs, sung by the musical's protagonist Steve Balsamo, are featured on the album Poe: More Tales of Mystery and Imagination. "Train to Wuxi" was the original version of "Train to Freedom", which is also included in the Poe musical and features Woolfson's one and only guitar solo.
Eye 2 Eye: Live in Madrid is a live concert performance by Alan Parsons released on both DVD-Video and Audio CD on April 6, 2010 on the Frontiers label. The show was performed with his band Alan Parsons Live Project, and was recorded live at the Plaza Mayor, Madrid, Spain, on May 14, 2004.
"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 number 58 in the United Kingdom, the group's highest chart placing in their native country. The music video was rendered in comic book style, with art and animation by Michael Kaluta.
"Sirius" is an instrumental by British rock band the Alan Parsons Project, recorded for their sixth studio album, Eye in the Sky (1982). Nearly two minutes long, it segues into "Eye in the Sky" on the original recording. From the 1990s onward, "Sirius" has become a staple of many college and professional sporting events throughout North America, most prominently Chicago Bulls and Nebraska Cornhuskers games.
Ambrosia is the debut album by Ambrosia. It was released in 1975 on 20th Century Fox Records. It spawned the top 20 chart single "Holdin' on to Yesterday" as well as the minor hit "Nice, Nice, Very Nice". The latter sets to music the lyrics to a poem in Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Engineered Recording. Alan Parsons was the mixdown engineer for Ambrosia's first album and the producer for their second.
Alan Parsons Live is the first live album by Alan Parsons, recorded in May 1994 during his European tour, and released late that year by Arcade Records in Europe. RCA/BMG added three new studio tracks and changed the cover art when releasing the album in the rest of the world in 1995, renaming it The Very Best Live; stylized on the cover with "The Very Best" in a smaller font between Alan Parsons and Live. Despite the tour promoting Try Anything Once with seven songs from the album in the setlist, the live performances on the album are all songs from his years with The Alan Parsons Project.