Jesus Christ Superstar started life as a most improbable concept album from an equally unlikely label, Decca Records, which had not, until then, been widely known for groundbreaking musical efforts. It was all devised by then year-old composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and year-old lyricist Tim Rice. If its content seemed daring and perhaps downright sacrilegious , the work, a "sung-through" musical echoing operatic and oratorio traditions, was structurally perfect for an album; just as remarkable as its subject matter was the fact that its musical language was full-blown rock music. There was at the time an American-spawned hit theater piece called Hair that utilized elements of rock music, but it wasn't as unified a work as Webber and Rice 's creation, and it was less built on rock music than on pop music that referred to rock; Webber and Rice 's work presented a far sharper, bolder musical edge and pushed it much further and harder than Hair ever did. Serving as their own producers, the two creators got together more than 60 top-flight singers and musicians including Chris Spedding , John Gustafson , Mike Vickers , P. Arnold , and members of Joe Cocker 's Grease Band , not to mention Murray Head , Ian Gillan , and Yvonne Elliman in key singing roles , and managed to pull the whole production together into a more than coherent whole that contained a pair of hit singles the title track and "I Don't Know How to Love Him" to help drive AM radio exposure. What's more, the whole album sounded like the real article as far as its rock music credibility was concerned -- it was played good and hard for a studio creation. Released in America by Decca as a handsomely decorated double-LP set complete with illustrated libretto, Jesus Christ Superstar seemed to pick up where the Who 's Tommy also a Decca release and Hair had left off, and audiences from across the age and cultural spectrum responded.
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BIOGRAPHIES
It started as a rock opera album musical before its Broadway on-stage debut in The musical is sung-through , with no spoken dialogue. The story is loosely based on the Gospels' accounts of the last week of Jesus ' life, beginning with the preparation for the arrival of Jesus and his disciples in Jerusalem and ending with the crucifixion. It depicts political and interpersonal struggles between Judas Iscariot and Jesus that are not present in the Bible.
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Sign In. Edit Jesus Christ Superstar Jesus Christ Carl Anderson Judas Iscariot Yvonne Elliman Mary Magdalene Barry Dennen Pontius Pilate Bob Bingham
Jesus Christ Superstar is a album musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice , on which the rock opera musical of the same name was based. The album musical is a musical dramatisation of the last week of the life of Jesus Christ , beginning with his entry into Jerusalem and ending with the Crucifixion. It was originally banned by the BBC on grounds of being "sacrilegious". The album's story is based in large part on the Synoptic Gospels and Fulton J. Sheen 's Life of Christ , which compares and calibrates all four Gospels. However, greater emphasis is placed on the interpersonal relationships of the major characters, in particular, Jesus, Judas and Mary Magdalene , relationships that are not described in depth in the Gospels. The first piece of Superstar released was the title song , as a single in November backed with the instrumental "John Nineteen Forty-One" see John The full album followed almost a year later.
