Zombies: Old and Wise

The Alan Parsons Project was just that: a project put together by Alan Parsons, a sound engineer and record producer, with the help of his manager and fellow composer Eric Woolfson. Tired of having groups reject his ideas, Parsons took control and recruited individual musicians to work on his concept albums.

Some players were regulars, and a sort of Alan Parsons house band soon emerged. This was based around former members of the Scottish group Pilot, which had been relentlessly promoted by BBC Radio 1 in its time, perhaps because two of its members had escaped from an early version of the Bay City Rollers.

But what was really different about the Alan Parsons Project was the number of different vocalists who sang on its albums. One of them, who sang this track from its 1982 album Eye in the Sky, was the former Zombie lead singer Colin Blunstone.

Was the Alan Parsons Project any good? BBC Music does not think so saying that Eye in the Sky was supposed to be

an album 'about belief systems', although you would be forgiven for thinking it was about wet, FM-friendly rock.

Still, I rather like this song, if only for Blunstone's voice. I was going to give you the original version, but I find that it is not possible to embed it. So here is Blunstone singing "Old and Wise" with the Zombies at Market Harborough Leisure Centre ("Rural South Leicestershire's premier rock venue") earlier this year.

All concept albums had this sort of guitar solo. I think it was the law.