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13.07.12MusicWeek 21
Dies, not leastMojo magazine,which more typically devotes its pages to features about the likes of Neil Young and Pink Floyd.However, it is running a spread on the musical in its August issue,while The Sunday Times’ Culture section has also covered it. “A lot of people forget this when they think
about Andrew, but when you sit down and listen to this record it really is a rock record: dirty guitars, big heavy drums, lots of bass and the screaming Ian Gillan over the top,” saysWragg.
LEFT Lord and lady Andrew Lloyd Webber and Amanda Holden host ITV’s Superstar
“It’s a bona fide rock
record.There’s no other way around it, so when we started this project and the Polydor team went out and talked toMojo they were as surprised as anybody when they got into it and rediscovered the record. Everybody’s got an impression of what Andrew is, but when they actually went back to where it started and what the history is about they had really discovered something they had forgotten.” “It was an extraordinary line-up of people we
got, considering thatTim Rice and I were unknown,” says LloydWebber. “I don’t think that today any record company would allow us to do it. If we were to try to do Jesus Christ Superstar today and we were two unknown boys and we suddenly called up and said ‘We’d like Pixie Lott and we’d like Jessie J asMaryMagdalene’ I think people would say: two
fingers.Nobody would ever think about it, yet we managed to get the lead singer of Deep Purple, Joe Cocker’s Grease Band, you name it, and people were much more open in those days about letting people do something experimental.” The album’s rock origins has plugged into the
marketing campaign mounted by Polydor with senior marketing manager Emma Powell noting: “A lot of the fans of this album are possibly more rock fans than musical theatre so it’s got a natural home with those people who bought it first time round. It was a real defining moment and the story is good to be told now. It’s an interesting thing to be told in Mojo and Culture.” As always,LloydWebber has
been very hands-on every step of the way with all three projects, including attending every audition of theTV series Superstar,which follows on from other reality shows involving the composer such as Any DreamWill Do and launched on ITV1 last Saturday, so beginning the search for the touring production’s
LEFT Then and now: Murray Head and Yvonne Elliman as Judas Iscariot and Mary Magdalene and (bottom) their 2012 versions, Tim Minchin and Melanie C
INSET Royal Moyles Chris will play Herod
MaryMagdalene and,most unlikely of all, ChrisMoyles playing King Herod. Apparently he is good. “Chris became friends with Nigel
CEO Randy Phillips and its international touring president Rob Hallett who turns out to be a huge fan of the original record. “One of themost annoying things inmy life at themoment is every time I ring Rob up he sings parts of the record tome,” saysWragg. “Rob was like, ‘We really need to have that big sound’ and that’s verymuch the
concept we wanted for the arena show. It’s very much what we were looking for in the TV show and, of course, it’s verymuch what the original albumwas all
about.” The production’s cast includes
musical comedian andWest End hitMaltida co-writer TimMinchin as Judas Iscariot,Melanie C as
Wright, themusical director on the TV show and the tour, through his Celebrity X Factor performance a few years ago and Chris had always said he wanted to do something like this so we thought he’d be perfect for King Herod. He’s brilliant,” saysWragg. The star of the production, of
course, is not yet known as it will be decided by Superstar, the latest primetime TV show featuring Lloyd Webber to find the star of a big new stage production – but the first on ITV. Starting last Saturday (July 7), it follows four similar series in BBC One, the last being 2010’s
Over The Rainbow. “The TV show is a different
angle to the way the BBC came at the TV show,” saysWragg. “It’s very contemporary. It’s really interesting the way they’re doing that and Andrew is really enjoying that. He’s loving the fact we’ve got the arena tour finally coming together and the cast we’ve got on that and it’s a bit of a journey downmemory lane for himand Tim[Rice] with the record coming out.” The TV element will serve as the
most powerful weapon in what Wragg says will be the project’s biggest challenge of winning a whole new audience for the musical, although LloydWebber is surprised just how well known it is already. “It’s amazing howmany people
do know it because their parents knew it,” he says. “I was very surprised when I firstmet Tim Minchin and the first thing he said
tome when I was congratulating himonMatilda was ‘I want to play the role of Judas in Superstar.’ ‘How do you know the role?’ But that’s what he was brought up on.” Fromthe album’s perspective
Polydor seniormarketingmanager Emma Powell says there will be three types of audience to target: the rock crowd where the album started, amainstreamITV audience watching the TV programme and those going to the shows because of who is on the tour. “We’re targeting obviously
Andrew’smusical base to remind themeven though there was a cast albumthis is where it originally began,” she adds. “The tagline for the campaign is
‘Where It All Began’ and we will obviously be following the TV show, but we’ll start off targeting amale audience of a certain age that remember thismusical, utilising channels like Dave and Sky News and on radio TalkSport and LBC alongside ITV platforms and YouTube pre-rolls.”
leading man.He has also been heavily involved in the remastering of the album,which included work undertaken at Abbey Road and Sphere, as well as at his home studios, and comes out on July
16.The result, according toWragg, is “a much broader dynamic range in the record”. If all goes according to plan, a new generation
will discover Jesus Christ Superstar for the very first time and should also remind the world that, long before Joseph,Evita,Cats,Phantom et al that made him king of theWest End and Broadway,Webber was originally a composer of rock
music.Could revisiting his first great triumph then reawaken the rock gene in him? “I don’t think history repeats itself in the same
BELOW Spreading the word: A tour and remastered album are to run alongside the ITV show
sense,” says LloydWebber. “The trouble is everything has changed to such a degree. I’m lucky because I’m in the live entertainment business and if one were to be setting out to do something now on record you would be very brave because you don’t really sell any. “The thing I did with Gary Barlow (the
Diamond Jubilee single Sing) did do very well but that’s a one off, a special occasion like that. I don’t know whether one would be able to do
that.The new piece I am writing will be very music based, but how one releases and issues the music today is such a different world than it was 42 years ago.”
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