Calling all Alan Parsons fans! Find this disc, buy this disc!
When I first heard The Alan Parsons Project, I was tuning into a classical music radio station to get my fill of relaxing music. Little did I know, the station had changed formats and they were debuting the entire I Robot (at the time) LP. Commercial breaks only from the end of side one to the beginning of side two.
When I first heard those sequenced synth sounds coming through my speakers, not only was I curious as to where my classical music had gone, but also I was very intrigued by what was coming through my speakers! Ever since that day, I was hooked. Then I started to hear more and more Alan Parsons songs on this station and others. Then there were more tracks not only from the I Robot album, but new ones!
Now mind you, this was back in an era when there was no public internet and radio was still free. So getting information on an artist was reduced to magazines, Creem, Rolling Stone, Circus, etc. All these magazines stated unequivocally that The Alan Parsons Project was a studio project only. Never to tour live. Comprised of the best studio musicians and mates Parsons and long-time musical collaborator Eric Woolfson could muster. Many of whom were already members of some of Europe’s greatest prog rock, pop and other genre groups. David Paton of Pilot and Camel, Stuart Tosh of 10cc and also of Pilot, Ian Bairnson of (of all bands) The Bay City Rollers as well as being a sideman for Kate Bush, vocalists such as Lenny Zakatek and Allan Clarke, Dave Townsend and the list goes on and on. Managing these people, their schedules and comprising a tour when the namesake of the band is one of the most sought after studio whiz-bangs in the industry and his cohort has little to no interest in going on the road (and has a rewarding career as a manager, songwriter and accidental vocalist) proved logistically impossible. Until many years later…
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