TODAY'S ALBUM: No.6 (31st October 2011)

'Tales Of Mystery & Imagination' 

by The Alan Parsons Project
(1976)

There aren't many musicians who claim Edgar Allan Poe as their major musical influence but then again there aren't many rock groups like this uniquely-structured 'collective'.
The creation of engineer-turned-producer Alan Parsons and song-writer, musician and manager Eric Woolfson, The Alan Parsons project would enjoy a prolific eleven-year existence during the 1970's and 1980's that cleverly straddled the seemingly-gaping void between progressive rock and mainstream pop. In the process, they would produce music that was both challenging and commercially successful, with the group's core of Parsons and Woolfson, two highly-creative figures with differing backgrounds, at the heart of everything produced under the Alan Parsons Project banner. 
The story would begin with the two meeting sometime during the early-seventies at the famed Abbey Road studios in London, with Parsons, who had forged a career as top-notch tape operator before adding his expert technicians touch to the seminal Pink Floyd album 'The Dark Side Of The Moon', boasting a resume that also included working with The Beatles as an assistant technician on their 'Let It Be' and 'Abbey Road' albums. It would be for his work on 'Dark Side Of The Moon', however, that Parsons received his first engineer's credit, having worked closely with the group during recording and even helping shape the overall sound of some of the individual tracks(Indeed it was Parsons who hired Clare Torry, whose vocals so beautifully adorn 'The Great Gig In The Sky'). After the enormous worldwide success of the album Parsons moved up to the rank of  in-house producer at Abbey Road, producing series of albums for groups such as the Scottish pop-group Pilot, American semi-progressive outfit Ambrosia and Steve Harley's pub-rock leaning Cockney Rebels, groups that would all play a big part in shaping the sound of many Alan Parsons Projects albums over the years. Woolfson, meanwhile, was a songwriter signed to Rolling Stones producer-and-manager Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate stable(also home to rock groups such as Humble Pie and Small Faces) and was also a successful manager himself. Artists such as Marianne Faithful and Carl Douglas were Woolfson discoveries for the 20th Century Fox label, and the latter's smash hit single 'Kung Fu Fighting' proved  one of the biggest-selling singles in the history of pop music, shifting an incredible eleven million copies since it's 1974 release. 
After their initial meeting Woolfson agreed to become Parsons manager, and in 1975 and the two quickly set about crafting an idea Woolfson has been working on for some time, a West end musical based on the writings of noted horror author Edgar Allan Poe. At some point, however, the idea of a  musical was scrapped and the duo began adapting Woolfson's idea into a progressive-style concept album, the idea being that Woolfson would write the bulk of the material, including much of the lyrical content, whilst Parsons would oversee the project in his customary producer's guise. Musicians were drawn from the Parsons-produced groups Pilot and Ambrosia, whilst English stage-and-screen actor Leonard Whiting(Romeo in Franco Zefferelli's 1968 film adaptation of 'Romeo & Juliet') and American film legend Orson Welles were brought in to add their distinctive vocal tones to proceedings. The real departure, however, was the addition of a full-scale orchestra for the album's epic closing suite 'The Fall Of The House Of Usher',  a five-part composition conducted by noted composer Andrew Powell. 
'Tales Of Mystery & Imagination' was eventually released in 1976 on Tony Stratton-Smith's fledgling Charisma label in the UK and on 20th Century Fox throughout the rest of the world. Despite Welles booming narrative being omitted from the final cut(it would return in it's full glory on the Parsons-engineered 1987 reissue) the album proved a modest scult success, particularly in the USA. Notably, 'Tales Of Mystery & Imagination' featured an unconventional make-up for a mainstream rock album of the time, with side one featuring a guitar-and-keyboard-heavy, American-style pop-tinged progressive rock sound and side two dominated by Powell's powerful orchestrations. Parsons would make a rare vocal appearance on the album's opening track 'The Raven', singing through a vocoder, whilst other vocalists such as Crazy World front-man Arthur Brown, solo artist John Miles and The Hollies Terry Sylvester also appeared. The album's classically-conceived coup-de-grace, however, would prove to be an entirely instrumental affair awash with atmospheric sound effects, proving to be the album's most indelible - and progressively minded - piece. Indeed, 'The Fall Of The House Of Usher' would count as one of the outfit's most ambitious works of their decade-long career.
Despite not garnering the massive commercial success hoped for, 'Tales Of Mystery & Imagination' would provide a platform for great success for Parsons and Woolfson later on down the line. 1977's Isaac Asimov-inspired follow-up 'I Robot' would soften the harsh orchestral edges in favour of a warmer, lighter style, though one that would again borrow heavily from the two musical worlds of prog and pop. However, despite the lasting success of later albums, the inspired combination of disparate elements on offer here - literary horror themes, powerful classical ingredients, prog-rock influences, pop melodies - demonstrated a remarkable conceptual vision and a truly original take on the traditional rock group set-up that is a perfect example of just what a wonderful and varied genre progressive rock can be. 
Those who find King Crimson too arty, Yes to symphonic or Genesis far too in-accessible should definitely lend an ear to this impressive debut.


Key songs: The Raven, (The System Of) Dr Tarr & Professor Fether