Tales of Mystery and Imagination

This article is about The Alan Parsons Project's album. For Nocturnal Rites's album, see Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Nocturnal Rites album).

Tales of Mystery and Imagination
Studio album by The Alan Parsons Project
Released	May 1976 (US) June 1976 (UK)
Recorded	July 1975 - January 1976 Abbey Road Studios Mama Jo's Kingsway Hall
Genre	Progressive rock, art rock
Length	40:46
Label	20th Century Fox Records (US) Charisma (UK) Casablanca (1982 US reissue with alternate artwork) Mercury (1987 CD remix)
Producer	Alan Parsons
The Alan Parsons Project chronology
Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1976) I Robot (1977)
Alternative cover
LP featuring alternate artwork

Tales of Mystery and Imagination is the debut album by the progressive rock group The Alan Parsons Project, released in 1976. The album's avant-garde soundscapes kept it from being a blockbuster, but the interesting lyrical and musical themes — retellings of horror stories and poetry by Edgar Allan Poe — attracted a cult audience. The title of the album is taken from a popular title for a collection of Poe's macabre tales of the same name, Tales of Mystery & Imagination, first published in 1908 and reprinted many times since.

Musicians featured on the album include vocalist Arthur Brown of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown (who sings The Tell Tale Heart and Francis Monkman, who had played with Curved Air and later founded Sky.

Tales of Mystery and Imagination peaked at #38 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart. "(The System Of) Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether" peaked at #37 on the Pop Singles chart.

Song information

"The Raven" features actor Leonard Whiting on lead vocals, with Alan Parsons performing vocals through an EMI vocoder. According to the album's liner notes, "The Raven" was the first rock song ever to feature a digital vocoder. A variant of this song appears on the Eric Woolfson album Edgar Allan Poe (2009) (see Poe: More Tales of Mystery and Imagination) which contains the complete music from Woolfson's 2003 stage musical of the same name. The variant track does not appear on Woolfon's 2003 CD Poe: More Tales of Mystery and Imagination, which was a highly abridged version of the stage musical. On the variant, the bass line and keyboard chords of the original Tales of Mystery and Imnagination track are heard, but they are quieter, do not feature a vocoder, and instead of an abridged version of the Poe poem being sung, the Woolfson version features a fuller spoken dramatic reading of the poem.

The Prelude of "The Fall of the House of Usher", although uncredited, is inspired by the opera fragment "La chute de la maison Usher" by Claude Debussy which was composed in 1908-1917. The Fall of the House of Usher is an instrumental suite which runs 16 minutes plus and takes up most of Side 2 of the recording.

On "The Raven", notes from both "I Robot" and "Breakdown" from the I Robot album can be heard. "To One In Paradise" has musical similarities to "Siren Song" on Alan Parsons' 1993 solo debut Try Anything Once.

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Rolling Stone	(mixed)

Critical reaction to the album was often mixed; for example, Rolling Stone's Billy Altman concluded that it did not completely accurately reproduce Poe's tension and macabre fear, ending by claiming that "devotees of Gothic literature will have to wait for someone with more of the macabre in their blood for a truer musical reading of Poe's often terrifying works". Still, it was a mildly positive review.

Release history

Originally simply called The Alan Parsons Project, the album was successful enough to achieve gold status. The identity of The Alan Parsons Project as a group was cemented on the second album, I Robot in 1977.

The original version of the album was available for several years on vinyl and cassette, but was not immediately available on CD.

In 1987, Parsons completely remixed the album, including additional guitar passages and narration (by Orson Welles) as well as updating the production style to include heavy reverb and the gated reverb snare drum sound, which was popular in the 1980s. The CD notes that Welles never met Parsons or Eric Woolfson, but sent a tape to them of the performance shortly after the album was manufactured in 1976.

The first passage narrated by Welles on the 1987 remix (which comes before the first track, "A Dream Within a Dream") is sourced from an obscure nonfiction piece by Poe - No XVI of his Marginalia (from 1845 to 1849 Edgar Allan Poe titled some of his reflections and fragmentary material "Marginalia.") The second passage Welles reads (which comes before Fall of the House of Usher (Prelude), seems to be a partial paraphrase or composite from nonfiction by Poe, chiefly from a collection of poems titled "Poems of Youth" by Poe (contained in "Introduction to Poems – 1831" in a section titled "Letter to Mr. B-----------"; the "Shadows of shadows passing" part of the quote comes from the Marginalia.

In 1994 Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL) released the original 1976 version on CD (UDCD-606), making the original available digitally for the first time.

In 2007, a Deluxe Edition released by Universal Music included both the 1976 and the 1987 versions remastered by Alan Parsons during 2006 with eight additional bonus tracks.

Legacy

In July, 2010, the album was named as one of Classic Rock magazine's "50 Albums That Built Prog Rock".

Track listing

1. "A Dream Within A Dream" [instrumental] – 4:14
2. "The Raven" – 3:57 (ft. Leonard Whiting on lead vocals, Alan Parsons lead vocal through an EMI vocoder)
3. "The Tell-Tale Heart" – 4:38 (ft. Arthur Brown)
4. "The Cask of Amontillado" – 4:33 (ft. John Miles)
5. "(The System Of) Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether" – 4:20 (ft. John Miles and Jack Harris)
6. "The Fall of the House of Usher [instrumental] - 16:10
   1. "Prelude" – 7:02
   2. "Arrival" – 2:39
   3. "Intermezzo" – 1:00
   4. "Pavane" – 4:36
   5. "Fall" – 0:51
7. "To One in Paradise" – 4:46 (ft. Terry Sylvester on lead vocals, backing vocals by Eric Woolfson)

Orson Welles' narration appears on the 1987 Remix only, at the beginning of "A Dream Within a Dream" and "Prelude".

2007 Deluxe Edition

Disc 1: Tracks 1-11, Original Album in Original 1976 Mix

12. "The Raven" (original demo)
13. "Edgar" (demo of an unreleased track)
14. "Orson Welles Radio Spot"
15. "Interview with Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson" (1976)

Disc 2: Tracks 1-11, Original Album in 1987 Remix

12. "Eric's Guide Vocal Medley"
13. "Orson Welles Dialogue"
14. "Sea Lions in the Departure Lounge" (sound effects and experiments)
15. "GBH Mix" (unreleased experiments)

Personnel

• Alan Parsons - Organ, Synthesizer, Guitar, Keyboards, Recorder, Vocals, *Producer, Engineer, Projection
• Eric Woolfson - Synthesizer, Harpsichord, Keyboards, Vocals, Vocals (bckgr), Executive Producer
• Orson Welles - Narrator (1987 version only)
• Leonard Whiting - Vocals, Narrator
• Arthur Brown - Vocals
• John Miles - Guitar, Vocals
• Jack Harris - Vocals
• Francis Monkman - Organ, Keyboards
• Kevin Peek - Guitar (Acoustic)
• Terry Sylvester - Vocals
• Laurence Juber - Guitar (Acoustic)
• Andrew Powell - Keyboards, Arranger
• David Paton - Guitar (Acoustic), Bass, Guitar, Vocals, Vocals (bckgr)
• Ian Bairnson - Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar, Guitar (Electric)
• Chris Blair - Assistant Engineer
• Peter Christopherson - Photography
• David Katz - Violin, Leader, Orchestra Contractor
• Burleigh Drummond - Drums
• English Chorale - Vocals
• Bob Howes - Choir, Chorus
• John Leach - Percussion, Vocals, Cimbalom, Kantele
• David Pack - Guitar
• Smokey Parsons - Vocals
• Joe Puerta - Bass
• Tony Richards - Assistant Engineer
• Jack Rothstein - Leader
• Daryl Runswick - Bass, String Bass
• David Snell - Harp
• The English Chorale and Played Ti - Choir, Chorus
• Stuart Tosh - Cymbals, Drums, Vocals, Tympani [Timpani]
• Tom Trefethen - Assistant Engineer

• Pat Stapley - Assistant Engineer

• Aubrey Powell - Photography
• Storm Thorgerson - Photography
• Hipgnosis - Design, Cover Art
• Sam Emerson - Photography
• Colin Elgie - Artwork, Graphic Design, Layout Design
• Billy Lyall - Piano, Drums, Glockenspiel, Keyboards, Recorder, Fender Rhodes
• Gordon Parry - Engineer
• Jane Powell - Vocals, Vocals (bckgr)
• Les Hurdle - Bass
• Christopher North - Keyboards

Charts

Year	Chart	Position
1976	The Billboard 200	38
1976	UK Albums Chart	56
1976	Canada	81

See also

• Edgar Allan Poe and music
• "A Dream Within A Dream"
• "The Raven"
• "The Tell-Tale Heart"
• "The Cask of Amontillado"
• "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether"
• "The Fall of the House of Usher"