Alan Parsons Performs His Greatest Hits Live at the Paramount This June

Alan Parsons first came to prominence in the music world as the ground-breaking engineer for Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and The Beatles’ Abbey Road and Let It Be. As a performer with his eponymous Alan Parsons Project, he broke into the charts with hits that are timeless and virtually innumerable: ‘Sirius,’ ‘Eye In The Sky,’ ‘Time,’ ‘Damned If I Do,’ ‘Don’t Answer Me,’ ‘I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You,’ ‘Games People Play,’ ‘Dr. Tarr & Professor Fether’ and more! A true rock legend, Alan Parsons brings his Live Project – Greatest Hits Tour to the Paramount Hudson Valley stage on June 6th.

“Alan Parsons is one of the most important rock artists of all time, both in the studio and on stage,” says Paramount CEO Kurt G. Heitmann. “This June, the Paramount Theater turns 85. We couldn’t ask for a better way to start our 85th anniversary month, where we’ll be celebrating our landmark piece of Peekskill history, than with an artist who has had such a profound impact on music history.”

Alan dabbled with live performance as early as his teens, performing as a folk/blues acoustic player and as a lead guitarist with a blues band in the late sixties in his hometown of London. But as soon as he landed a job at the famous Abbey Road Studios at the age of 19, it became clear that the world of sound recording was to dominate a large part of his career.

He was fortunate enough to work as assistant engineer on the last two albums by The Beatles and after he qualified as a fully-fledged recording engineer, he went on to work with Paul McCartney and The Hollies among many others. But it was his contribution as engineer on Pink Floyd’s classic Dark Side of The Moon that really got him world attention. That soon led to striking successes as a producer – notably with Pilot’s “Magic,” John Miles’ “Highfly” and “Music,” and Steve Harley’s “Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me).” He also produced the hugely successful Year Of The Cat album with Al Stewart and two albums with American progressive rock band Ambrosia.

In 1975 he met Eric Woolfson who not only became his manager, but joined forces with Alan as a songwriting and performing partner for what became known as The Alan Parsons Project. The APP’s debut album, Tales Of Mystery And Imagination, based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, paved the way for a signing to Clive Davis’ newly launched Arista label and a string of hit albums, namely I Robot (1977), Pyramid (1978), The Turn of a Friendly Card (1980), Eye in the Sky (1982), Ammonia Avenue (1984), Vulture Culture (1985), Stereotomy (1986) and Gaudi (1987).

A brief venture into musical theatre resulted in Freudiana in 1990.The show ran for over a year in the historic Theater An Der Wien in Vienna. Eric and Alan then went separate ways. Eric devoted his career to the musical theatre while Parsons felt the need to bring his music to the live concert stage and to continue to record ambitious symphonic rock music.

With his long-standing previous APP collaborators, guitarist Ian Bairnson, drummer Stuart Elliott and orchestral arranger Andrew Powell, Alan dropped the “Project” identity for Alan Parsons – Try Anything Once in 1994. The partnership continued for On Air in 1996 and The Time Machine in 1999. During this time the first incarnation of “Alan Parsons Live Project” toured to sell-out audiences throughout the globe. Following Alan’s relocation to California, a new Live Project band was formed in 2003. Another band reshuffle happened in 2010. The current live band consists of Alan on acoustic guitar, keyboards and vocals, P.J. Olsson on vocals, Manny Foccarazzo on keyboards, Guy Erez on bass, Alastair Greene on guitar, Danny Thompson on Drums, and Todd Cooper on sax, percussion and vocals.

The album A Valid Path, Alan’s foray into electronica was released in 2004 and featured Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, The Crystal Method, Shpongle, Uberzone, PJ Olsson and Alan’s son, Jeremy. 2008 saw the reissue of all the Alan Parsons Project albums in expanded form, containing never-before-heard bonus material and a 2-CD compilation called The Essential Collection. One of the most familiar Project tracks is “Sirius,” perhaps best known as the Chicago Bulls theme. It was also used as the walk-on music for The New Orleans Saints at their triumphant Superbowl game in 2010 and at the 2012 European Cup soccer matches. “Sirius” has also been featured at countless other sporting events and in the movies Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs and Beerfest.

Alan has come full circle and is back in his role as producer and engineer both at his own Santa Barbara studio and other studios internationally. Alan produced an album called Grand Ukulele with JAKE SHIMABUKORO, the virtuoso ukulele player, whose YouTube video of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” has received over ten million hits! The album contains a number of orchestral arrangements by Winger frontman, Kip Winger. A collaboration with Steven Wilson as engineer and associate producer resulted in major success including a Top 5 album in Germany in 2013.

A CD box set of all the Alan Parsons Projects was released in March 2014 and included a controversial never previously released CD from 1979 entitled The Sicilian Defence.

Alan has received a large number of awards including eleven Grammy® nominations, The Les Paul Award in 1995 and The Diva Hall Of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award in Munich, Germany in June 2012. He is in demand as a public speaker and was keynote speaker at the 2014 Audio Engineering Society Convention in Los Angeles and was the opening speaker at the TEDx Conejo conference in California in April 2012. Most recently, Alan received the 2015 Sound:check Lifetime Achievement Award.

Event: Alan Parsons Live Project - Greatest Hits Tour

Date: Saturday, June 6th, 2015

Time: 8pm

Tickets: $65, $55, $40

Website: http://paramounthudsonvalley.com/events/event/alan-parsons-live-project

For tickets and more information visit paramounthudsonvalley.com or call the box-office at 914-739-0039. Paramount Hudson Valley is located at 1008 Brown Street in Peekskill, New York.