by Paul
The Captain & Tennille certainly picked the right song when they sang “Love Will Keep Us Together” back in 1975 – not only did the record go to Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 nine weeks after its debut, the husband and wife team really are still together. “Do That To Me One More […]
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by Paul
Mi-Sex was a top New Zealand band that went to Australia in the late Seventies and had a lot of success there, culminating in their first album “Graffitti Crimes”, featuring the title track as well as songs like the Australian No. 1 single “Computer Games” and their recent other single from 1979, “But You Don’t […]
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by Paul
When I heard the name Alan Parsons mentioned today, in my mind I was in a student flat in about 1977 in Waldegrave Street, Palmerston North, New Zealand, listening to “The Raven” from the album “Tales Of Mystery And Imagination”, the first from The Alan Parsons Project.
The Alan Parsons Project was founded by its namesake Alan Parsons, a young engineer at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London, and Eric Woolfson, who wrote most of the songs and sang on many of them. Woolfson died at the beginning of December last year (2009).
Alan Parsons first came to prominence engineering the Beatles album “Abbey Road”, and was also particularly well known for his work on Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side Of The Moon”, as well as many works by The Hollies.
He also played a major role in influencing the sound of Al Stewart’s “The Year Of The Cat” and “Time Passages”, which he also produced.
The Alan Parsons Project was really a fluid group of different musicians around these two main protagonists, and produced studio music in the genre some call progressive rock.
“Tales Of Mystery And Imagination”, released in 1976, was a tribute to horror writer Edgar Allen Poe. Here are two tracks from it:
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by Paul
“Shine On You Crazy Diamond” from Pink Floyd accompanied me all the way round New Zealand’s South Island in the back seat of the family car at the end of 1975, my last year at school. (I grew up on the North Island, by the way.)
And a few years later I remember hearing a band called Father Time playing it in the “Old Wool Room” at Massey University, where they used to hold the student dances before it was pulled down. Key members of Father Time later went on to become “Mi-Sex”, a top band in Australia.
Of course, Pink Floyd was everywhere in the 70s, you couldn’t go to a party without hearing the album “Dark Side of the Moon” if nothing else.
I had a bit of a problem regarding a video of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” – the song is so long, people have had to break it up and it wasn’t so easy to find the matching clips!
This one is an earlier live version, from 1974:
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Tags: Art Garfunkel, Bicentennial Celebration, Billboard Hot 100, Captain Tennille, Daryl Dragon, Do That To Me One More Time, Elizabeth Ii, Elton John, Gerald Ford, Howard Greenfield, Husband And Wife, Love Will Keep Us Together, Music of the Seventies, Neil Sedaka, Nice Beach, Nine Weeks, Pink Floyd, President Gerald Ford, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth II, Sedate Pace, Session Singer, The Beach Boys, The Captain & Tennille, Toni Tenille, Toni Tennille, Wife Team
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