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Remember When Alan Parsons Finally Let His Longtime Collaborator Do Some Singing… And It Paid off in a Major Way in 1980?
Eric Woolfson, Alan Parsons’s longstanding collaborator in the Alan Parsons Project, was finally allowed to sing lead vocals on the group’s 1980 album The Turn of a Friendly Card. His performance on the ballad “Time” became a major hit, helping establish Woolfson as a key vocalist during the project’s most commercially successful period.
Parsons and Woolfson formed the Alan Parsons Project after meeting in the mid-1970s, initially using a changing roster of session singers rather than operating as a conventional touring band. “Time” reached number 15 on the US pop chart after its 1981 release, while “Games People Play”, sung by Lenny Zakatek, had already reached the US Top 20; Woolfson subsequently sang on major hits including 1982’s “Eye in the Sky”.
In short
- Eric Woolfson’s lead vocal on “Time” became a US Top 15 hit.
- The song changed Parsons’s view of Woolfson as a singer.
- Woolfson then led vocals on several Alan Parsons Project hits.
Explained simply
The Alan Parsons Project was a studio-based British rock group led by producer and engineer Alan Parsons and songwriter Eric Woolfson. Rather than having a fixed line-up with one frontman, it used different singers and musicians on its recordings.
Parsons was already known for his work behind the scenes on albums including Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, while Woolfson wrote many of the group’s songs and helped shape its ideas. Their albums often combined polished rock music with themes such as technology, gambling and human behaviour.
By 1980, Woolfson had mainly stayed out of the spotlight as a performer, while guest vocalists took the lead. His move into lead singing came during a period when the project was gaining a wider audience, particularly in the United States.