The Alan Parsons Project

Biography

British Rock studio project initially formed to record a concept album about Edgar Allan Poe. They became best known for the power ballad “Eye in the Sky” and the instrumental “Sirius”.

[b]Official band members[/b]
● [a=Alan Parsons] – production, engineering, programming, composition, keyboards, guitar
● [a=Eric Woolfson] – composition, lyrics, piano, keyboards, vocals, executive production

[b]Notable contributors[/b]
● [a=Andrew Powell] – composition, keyboards, orchestral arrangements (1975-1990)
● [a=Philharmonia Orchestra]
● [a=The English Chorale] – choir (1976, 1977, 1982, 1987)
● [a=Ian Bairnson] – guitar (1975–1990)
● [a=David Pack] – guitar (1976)
● [a=David Paton] – bass, vocals (1975–1985)
● [a=Duncan Mackay] – keyboards (1977–1979)
● [a=Richard Cottle] – keyboards, saxophone (1984–1990)
● [a=Laurence Cottle] – bass (1987-1990)
● [a=Stuart Tosh] – drums, percussion (1975–1976)
● [a=Stuart Elliott] – drums, percussion (1977–1990)
● [a=John Leach] – cimbalom, kantele (1976–1978)
● [a=Colin Blunstone] – vocals (1978–1984)
● [a=Chris Rainbow] – vocals (1979–1990)
● [a=Lenny Zakatek] – vocals (1977–1987)
● [a=John Miles] – vocals (1976, 1978, 1985, 1987)
● [a=Jack Harris] – vocals (1976–1978)
● [a=Dave Townsend] – vocals (1977, 1979)
● [a=Elmer Gantry] a.k.a. [a=Dave Terry (4)] – vocals (1980, 1982)
● [a=Graham Dye] – vocals (1985, 1990)

Non-recurring vocalists include: [a=Arthur Brown] (1975), [a=Allan Clarke] (1977), [a=Peter Straker] (1977), [a=Jaki Whitren] (1977), [a=Dean Ford] (1978), [a=Clare Torry] (1979), [a=Lesley Duncan] (1979), [a=Gary Brooker] (1985), [a=Geoff Barradale] (1987), [a=Eric Stewart] (1990)

Notable instruments: Projectron – A device built by Alan Parsons as an analog sample playback device, similar in general concept to a Mellotron. The Projectron consisted of a 24-track tape machine, with each playback channel routed to a voltage controlled amplifier; each VCA was in turn gated by a key of an attached keyboard. The device was used on the albums I Robot, Pyramid, and The Turn of a Friendly Card. But preparing tapes was a cumbersome process and the device was maintenance-intensive, so as soon as a Fairlight CMI became available to Parsons, he switched his sampling activities to that. Parsons scrapped the Projectron sometime after 1980, and no photos of it are known to have survived.