|
This article covers Alan Parsons, the individual. See the article The Alan Parsons Project for detailed history of the band. Alan Parsons (born December 20, 1948 in London, England) is a British audio engineer, musician, and record producer.
Career in brief Parsons first came to prominenence as a studio engineer for such albums as The Beatles' Abbey Road and Pink Floyd's iconic The Dark Side of the Moon. He was known for going beyond what would normally be considered the scope of a recording engineer's duties. He considered himself to be a recording director, likening his contribution to recordings to what Stanley Kubrick did on film. This is obvious in his work with Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat", where Parsons added the saxophone part and transformed the original folk concept into the jazz influenced ballad that put Al Stewart onto the charts. It is also heard in Parsons' influence on the Hollies' "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" and "The Air That I Breathe", sharp departures from their 60s pop "Stay", "Just One Look", "Stop, Stop, Stop" or "Bus Stop". Parsons also produced the debut album by Pilot, a Scottish rock/pop band, whose hits included January & Magic, the band featuring future "Project" member Ian Bairnson on guitar. Apparently inspired by his influential contribution to Stewart's work he founded The Alan Parsons Project with producer and songwriter, and occasional singer Eric Woolfson, in 1975. The Project dissolved after 1987, and Parsons continues to release work in his own name and in collaboration with other musicians. Although an accomplished vocalist, keyboardist, and flutist, Parsons only sang infrequent and incidental parts on his albums. Whilst his keyboard playing was very prominent on Alan Parsons Project albums, recordings featuring his flute are virtually unknown. Guitarist Ian Bairnson worked with Parsons the longest, through his "post"-Woolfson albums Try Anything Once, On Air, and The Time Machine. Nowadays he has reused partially the old name of his project in his tours, being called The Alan Parsons Live Project (with Eric's permission). In the years 2004-2006 The Alan Parsons Live Project offered world-spanning concerts presenting some material from his most recent album A Valid Path (the earlier 2004-2005 shows offered vocalist P. J. Olsson's track More Lost Without You while the later 2006 shows presented The Crystal Method-featured We Play the Game and opened with Return to Tunguska) along with hits spanning the "Project" years. Parsons' song, "Sirius", has been used for years by the Chicago Bulls as background music for their player introductions. Solo discography Trivia Alan Parsons resides in the Santa Barbara, California area. In May 2005, Alan 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" and their performance of The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety. | ||||||||
|
| |||||||||
 |
|
| |