Eye in the sky - Alan Parsons Project - 1982 - British Progressive Rock 80s

Eye in the sky - Alan Parsons Project - 1982

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Alan Parsons Project: Biografia | Biography

Source: Wikipedia

The Alan Parsons Project was a British progressive rock band, active between 1975 and 1990, consisting of Eric Woolfson and Alan Parsons surrounded by a varying number of 

session musicians and some relatively consistent band members such as guitarist Ian Bairnson, bassist and vocalist David Paton, drummer Stuart Elliott, and vocalist Lenny Zakatek.

Behind the revolving line-up and the regular sidemen, the true core of the Project was the duo of Parsons and Woolfson. Woolfson was a songwriter by profession, but also a composer and pianist. Parsons was a successful producer and accomplished engineer. Almost all songs on the band's albums are credited to "Woolfson/Parsons".

Alan Parsons met Eric Woolfson in the canteen of Abbey Road Studios in the summer of 1974. Parsons had already acted as assistant engineer on the Beatles' Abbey Road and Let It Be, had recently engineered Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, and had produced 

several acts for EMI Records. Woolfson, a songwriter and composer, was working as a session pianist; he had also composed material for a concept album idea based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe.

When Parsons asked Woolfson to become his manager, he accepted and subsequently managed Parsons' career as a producer and engineer through a string of successes, including Pilot, Steve Harley, Cockney Rebel, John Miles, Al Stewart, Ambrosia and The 

Hollies. Parsons commented at the time that he felt frustrated in having to accommodate the views of some of the musicians, which he felt interfered with his production. Woolfson came up with the idea of making an album based on developments in the film industry, where 

directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick were the focal point of the film's promotion, rather than individual film stars. If the film industry was becoming a director's medium, Woolfson felt the music business might well become a producer's medium.[citation needed]

Recalling his earlier Edgar Allan Poe material, Woolfson saw a way to combine his and Parsons' respective talents. Parsons would produce and engineer songs written by the two, and the Alan Parsons Project was born. Their first album, Tales of Mystery and 

Imagination released by 20th Century Fox Records, including major contributions by all members of Pilot and Ambrosia, was a success, reaching the Top 40 in the US Billboard 200 chart. The song "The Raven" featured lead vocals by the actor Leonard Whiting, and, 

according to the 2007 remastered album liner notes, was the first rock song to use a digital vocoder, with Alan Parsons speaking lyrics through it.

Arista Records then signed The Alan Parsons Project for further albums. Through the late 1970s and early 1980s, the group's popularity continued to grow (although they were always more popular in North America and Continental Europe than in their home country, never 

achieving a UK Top 40 single or Top 20 album). The singles "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You", "Games People Play", "Damned If I Do", "Time" (Woolfson's first lead vocal) and "Eye in the Sky" had a notable impact on the Billboard Hot 100. "Don't Answer Me" became their

last successful single in the United States; it reached the top 15 on the American charts in 1984. After those successes, however, the group began to fade from view. There were fewer hit singles, and declining album sales. 1987's Gaudi would be the Project's final release, though they planned to record an album called Freudiana next.