Very Sad News from CBC News- Eric Woofson

Eric Woolfson of Alan Parsons Project dies at 64
Last Updated: Thursday, December 3, 2009 | 12:44 PM ET
CBC News

Musician Eric Woolfson, a singer and songwriter best known as co-founder of progressive rock group Alan Parsons Project, has died. He was 64.

Woolfson died in London on Wednesday after a battle with cancer, according to his website.

A songwriter since the early 1960s, Woolfson created 10 albums with Alan Parsons, an engineer who had worked on the Beatles' Abbey Road and on the Pink Floyd album, Dark Side of the Moon.

Their low-key albums, recorded with a revolving cast of session musicians, had a cult following, especially in Germany and the U.S. Their biggest selling album was 1982's Eye in the Sky. Other albums included I Robot and Tales of Mystery and Imagination, which was based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Glasgow-born Woolfson was a lyricist and singer for the group, writing songs that became hits, such as Time, Don't Answer Me and Eye in the Sky. Before working with Parsons, he wrote songs recorded by more than 100 artists, including Marianne Faithfull, Frank Ifield, The Tremeloes, Marmalade and Dave Berry. He also had success as a producer, most notably with Carl Douglas, who recorded the 1974 hit Kung Fu Fighting.

In the 1960s, Woolfson worked alongside two then-unknown writers, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. After he and Parsons split, while working on the album Freudiana, Lloyd Webber encouraged him to try his hand at musical theatre.

His first attempt was called Freudiana, a musical based on the life of Sigmund Freud, which premiered in 1990 in Vienna. He had great success in Germany with the musical Gaudi, based on the life of the Spanish architect, which ran five years. Another musical, The Gambler, toured in Japan and Korea.

He also returned to Poe, whose work had long fascinated him, with a musical that premiered at Abbey Road Studios in 2003 and was playing in Berlin at the time of his death.

Woolfson is survived by his wife Hazel and two daughters.