20MusicWeek 13.07.12 FEATUREJESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR THE SECOND COMING
No, we’re not talking The Stone Roses. Rather Jesus Christ Superstar – a ‘bona fide rock record’ according to The Really Useful Group’s BarneyWragg – which is about to be resurrected as an arena tour, a TV show and a remastered album. MusicWeek speaks to Andrew LloydWebber
TALENT BY PAULWILLIAMS
A
ndrew LloydWebber’s credentials as a man of rock got lost long ago on Broadway and in theWest End, but
they are about to be resurrected. Jesus Christ Superstar, the very first
musical he wrote with lyricistTim Rice when they were both still in their early twenties, is making a triple return with the rollout of a remastered version of the original 1970 album, an arena tour andTV talent show to find the star of the new production. So far all par for the course for the man
behind Evita,Cats,Phantom and countless other smash hit musicals, but what will stand out with these three projects is they will at long last re-connect him with his much-forgotten rock roots. Lest we forget, Jesus Christ Superstar
was a rock concept album first, long before it turned into a stage production, and it is its rock elementsWebber and his company the Really Useful Group, the album’s record company Polydor and AEG Live, which is behind the stage tour, are keen to put to the fore. “What is exciting about [the new
production] is it gives me a chance to do the show as we originally intended it in the rock arenas,” LloydWebber tellsMusicWeek. “People think of it as a musical here because the original album was not a hit here. It was absolutely vast in America. That was where it happened, in America, Australia,Canada, but not in England. People forget it was conceived as a rock piece so it’s a chance for me to do it in a space where it goes right back to what it was originally. It was never better than it was [originally].We had three concerts at one time simultaneously going around America and it was extraordinary and I’m really looking forward to that.” The Really Useful Group’s managing director
BarneyWragg recalls when LloydWebber and Rice first made the recording,which included Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillan,MurrayHead,Yvonne Elliman and Joe Cocker’s backing band, it happened without them knowing it would become a theatrical production. “It was done very much as a record, put together
as a record with at the time a very contemporary rock bent, so it was originallyMCA getting behind the concept and making the album work that allowed people like [Robert] Stigwood to get involved and say ‘Come on let’s get a theatrical production together.”’ This reconnection of LloydWebber with his
rock origins is resulting in some unlikely media coverage for the creator of Joseph and Love Never
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ABOVE The original ‘Superstars’: Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber (top) with the ‘first Jesus’ Ian Gillan (above)
THE MESSIAH COMPLEX GETTING THE SHOWBACKONTHE ROAD – ANDONTV
“A lot of people forget thiswhen they think about Andrew, but when you sit down and listen to this record it really is a rock record” BARNEY WRAGG, REALLY USEFUL COMPANY
WHEN ANDREWLLOYDWEBBER disclosed to ITV’s Peter Fincham plans for a new production of Jesus Christ Superstar the TV executive knew straight away there had to be a series around it. The ITV network director of
television had been BBC One controller when the channel worked with LloydWebber on the reality series How Do You Solve A ProblemLikeMaria and Any Dream Will Do and their relationship has been rekindled with the launch of Superstar on ITV1. It was immediately on hearing
about the stage production that Finchamtold the composer: “Look, we’d love to do a TV show around Jesus Christ Superstar.” “That was themoment we could take the TV idea forward and that
“Chris [Moyles] alwayswanted to do something like this sowe thought he’d be perfect for King Herod. He’s brilliant” BARNEY WRAGG
allowed us to crystalise the tour on the back of it,” says The Really Useful Group’smanaging director BarneyWragg. “It allows us to pull all those strands together and within a couple of weeks of doing that I phoned [Universal UK chairman and CEO] David Joseph and said ‘David we need to remaster the record.We need to get the record out’ and [Polydor managing director] JoeMunns and the teamat Polydor have been
great and jumped on it and saw the advantage for them, saw how that was going to work.” For Wragg, a former EMI and
Universal executive who joined the Really Useful Group last December, the chance to bring together different elements as is the case here with an album, tour and TV show was exactly why he had joined the company in the first place. “It was to pull all these strands
together where you can get the synergy of the different parts of these projects. It’s definitely a big task, but it’s great fun,” he says. For the stage production, which
begins at London’s O2 Arena on September 21, LloydWebber’s company could count on the support of AEG Live president &
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