 Eric Woolfson
 Poe: More Tales of Mystery and Imagination
 Review by Scott Prinzing

After the Alan Parsons Project called it a day, primary songwriter Eric Woolfson went on to produce several works for musical theater. He only released recordings of a few of these shows, like Freudiana (an abandoned APP project). On first glance, this 2003 CD would appear to be the soundtrack for his musical, Edgar Allan Poe, but only 10 of the 17 songs from the show are included here. Originally intended as a follow-up to the APP debut, but after the Project changed record labels after Tales of Mystery and Imagination, their Poe-themed debut, they went with a more varied approach. The intervening years resulted in this CD sounding like a mix of songs lifted form APP outtakes and the more Broadway-inclined theatrical work that Woolfson spent the latter two decades of his career producing.
Unlike APP albums that featured a different vocalist on nearly every track, Woolfson teams up with the excellent Steve Balsamo for five of the seven lead vocals; Brighton Festival Chorus and the Metro Voices on the rest of the songs. While it sounds more like an Alan Parsons Project album than the post APP albums released by Parsons himself, there are a few songs that you sense Parsons might have either nixed or tried to reign in Woolfson’s musical theater tendencies. Yet overall, it’s a rewarding collection that grows stronger with every listen.
Eric Woolfson died at age 64 after a battle with kidney cancer on Dec. 2, 2009.
This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2011 Volume 3 at lulu.com/strangesound.
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