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After showing early promise as a musician - learning piano, guitar
and flute as a child, Alan started to take on the role of listener
rather than the player. Although still working as a musician in
the late sixties he turned his attention to a career at the famous
Abbey Road Studios in London, where he was fortunate enough to
have participated in the last works of The Beatles. He was
assistant engineer on Let It Be and the brilliant Abbey Road
album.
A long association followed; both with the studio and Paul
McCartney. When the Beatles split up, Alan went on to engineer
such classics as Wings Red Rose Speedway album and the singles "Hi
Hi HI" and "C Moon". He had a similar association with The Hollies
on many hits including "He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother", and "The
Air That I Breathe".
This was only the beginning however; As the engineering mastermind
behind Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album, Alan became
highly sought after as one of the new breed of creative engineers.
His decision to enter into production resulted in immediate
success. He clocked up several hits with Pilot, Steve Harley and
Cockney Rebel, John Miles and Al Stewart.
With all this success, Alan found a very real need for management
and business guidance. It was then that Eric Woolfson, with whom
he had worked at Abbey Road, became actively involved in steering
Alan towards becoming an artist in his own right. Although they
started with a business venture, Eric was to use his songwriting
talents to form a creative partnership with Alan.
In 1974 they started adapting selected works of Edgar Allen Poe to
music. Two years, and thousands of feet of tape later, the Alan
Parsons Project was born: The highly acclaimed Tales Of Mystery
And Imagination album was the first in a series of award-winning
albums - I Robot, Pyramid, Eve, The Turn Of A Friendly Card, Eye
In The Sky, Ammonia Avenue, Vulture Culture, Stereotomy, and Gaudi.
As well as receiving gold and platinum awards from nearly every
country in the world, Alan has, to date, received ten Grammy
nominations for engineering and production.
Alan still finds time to produce records for other artists: most
recently albums for Colin Blunstone and Vitamin Z, and the
soundtrack of the film Ladyhawke, directed by Richard Donner.
Alan started a company that is devoted to improving the sound
quality of film and video. He has also turned his hand to
directing music based TV programs, his London Calling developed
into a major series on MTV, and he was instrumental in the
creation of Music Box, the European music cable service |
