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[0:00] Tim Rice: Hello, this is Tim Rice, and this is episode 54 of my podcast, Get On to My Cloud.

[0:17] Tim Rice: In previous podcasts, I have, not surprisingly perhaps, delved into the history of the show that launched Andrew Lloyd Webber and me into careers in musical theatre and associated enterprises.

[0:30] Tim Rice: That show, of course, was Jesus Christ Superstar in 1970.

[0:34] Tim Rice: We'd written a couple of shows before that: The Likes of Us, a stage musical based on the life of Victorian philanthropist Dr. Thomas Bernardo, and an oratorio for children, based on the Bible story of Joseph and his coat of many colours.

[0:49] Tim Rice: However, our first commercially successful break was Superstar, which, out of desperation, because no theatrical management wanted to go near it with a barge pole, we first inflicted it upon the world as an album, a double LP, two long-playing discs, those round black things, 12 inches in diameter, with a hole in the middle.

[1:11] Tim Rice: It was also available in those days as a cassette or eight-track cartridge, but this was way before CDs, let alone streaming.

[1:20] Tim Rice: Putting out the recording of a show before the show existed turned out to be a brilliant move, and we were hailed as marketing geniuses, in addition to any compliments we might have received for the actual work.

[1:32] Tim Rice: In fact, I think the theatre business was more impressed by our business acumen, of which we had at the time very little, than by our words and music.

[1:42] Tim Rice: Superstar took off in America first, like a bullet racing to the top of the American charts in early 1971, where we mixed with rock icons such as George Harrison, Janis Joplin, Santana, and the Partridge Family.

[1:57] Tim Rice: A Broadway show was now inevitable, and one duly hit the stage at the Mark Hellinger Theatre in October 1971.

[2:04] Tim Rice: It did okay, but nothing like as well as we might have expected following the stupendous record success.

[2:10] Tim Rice: Nonetheless, ever since then, Superstar has continued to be performed literally countless times in almost literally every known country, city, town, or hamlet that possesses a theatrical stage, church, or school hall.

[2:24] Tim Rice: For all this, we are profoundly grateful.

[2:27] Tim Rice: Here is one of the most popular tracks featuring all three principal singers, Yvonne Ellerman, Murray Head, and Ian Gillan.

[2:27] ♪ Musical number: "Everything's Alright" — performed by Yvonne Ellerman, Murray Head, and Ian Gillan ♪

[5:20] Tim Rice: To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the release of the original album in October 1970, a special box set has recently been issued.

[7:35] Tim Rice: It was a year late in escaping thanks to COVID, hitting the stores, or rather the online delivery sites, not in October 2020, but in October 2021.

[7:45] Tim Rice: It's quite a handsome package, though I say it myself, containing fresh interviews with many of the key members of the cast, such as Ian Gillan, Jesus, Murray Head, Judas, Yvonne Ellerman, Mary Magdalene, Victor Brox, Caiaphas, and Mike Darbo, King Herod, plus photographs, articles of appreciation by longtime fans and outtakes from the original sessions, which took place primarily in Olympic, probably the leading recording studio in the UK at the time, situated in probably the leading arrondissement in London, in my opinion anyway, Barnes.

[8:20] Tim Rice: 1970 was a lovely hot summer in London, I recall, before global warming was invented.

[8:55] Tim Rice: But when artists such as Matt and Nile say what they say about it, I think we have a case to say ours was a significant rock record of its era.

[9:05] Tim Rice: The new 51st anniversary box set also contains a CD of outtakes, curios, and rarities.

[9:11] Tim Rice: The problem is there are comparatively few of these, unlike in, say, the Beatles' superb box sets commemorating their great 60s albums, where you can enjoy 16 different takes of Get Back and embryo versions of subsequent classics recorded in George Harrison's front room.

[9:28] Tim Rice: One of the reasons for our lack of outtakes is that we were attempting to keep costs down and didn't feel we could waste time trying things out in the studio to any great extent.

[9:38] Tim Rice: Andrew and I usually turned up very efficiently at the right time, with our working day planned, time-wise, track-wise, and lunch break-wise.

[9:46] Tim Rice: We were never stoned in the studio, or boringly, never stoned out of it, because that was a state of mind we felt would not help our concentration, much as it seemed to help some of the performers.

[9:57] Tim Rice: Nothing was written in the studio, although, of course, with the great Alan O'Duffy at the controls, we tried lots of experiments with sounds and technical tricks, in as much as these things were possible in 1970 on a strict budget.

[10:10] Tim Rice: Incidentally, Alan is also one of the star interviewees in the new box set.

[10:15] Tim Rice: We managed to assemble, however, a whole CD of outtakes and oddities.

[10:19] Tim Rice: This includes just one unused number entitled What a Party.

[10:24] Tim Rice: This was a song written to be the first scene after the overture and after Judas's introductory agonizing Heaven on Their Minds.

[10:33] Tim Rice: In What a Party, Jesus and the disciples gather for a celebration, not, but possibly anticipating The Last Supper.

[10:40] Tim Rice: The lead singer on this track was Tony Ashton, a well-known and highly respected blues and rock singer of the era, whose biggest success was Resurrection Shuffle with his band Ashton Gardner and Dyke, a number three UK hit in 1971.

[10:55] Tim Rice: We felt rather bad consigning Tony to the outreach, but the song we'd saddled him with simply wasn't strong enough.

[11:02] Tim Rice: We eventually decided to cut straight from Heaven on Their Minds to What's the Buzz.

[11:07] Tim Rice: Here is What a Party.

[11:08] Tim Rice: Not to be confused with the Fats Domino classic of the same name.

[11:12] Tim Rice: Now available for the first time.

[11:49] ♪ Musical number: "What a Party" — performed by Tony Ashton ♪

[12:06] Tim Rice: I'm glad, so glad that you came along. Take your places, everyone now don't hesitate, the dinner's fine. Tell O'Thomas, you don't need to doubt the quality of the line. Other strange outtakes include rather too much of me doing scat vocal guides treatments, allegedly to help the eventual singers, with Elvis and Bob Dylan influenced vocals not necessarily doing so. There are also two open-ended interviews with me and Andrew in this package, which were sent out to radio stations all across America when it became apparent to MCA Records that they had a big hit on their hands. Radio stations were sent a scripted list of questions, which their local jock could recite, to be followed by our pre-recorded answers.

Bearing in mind we were an unknown quantity, some of the questions were very basic, asking us our ages, how long we've been together, etc. So by taking the interviewer's role, you too can question the 25-year-old me and the 21-year-old Andrew. I just hoped at the time that the interviewers followed the script, as we were unable to divert from it. My first pre-recorded answer is, quote, it's nice to be on it, unquote, which could be the answer to any number of loaded or wildly irrelevant questions. The box set contains photographs, mainly of Andrew and me writing in his flat in Gledhoe Gardens, but also quite a few of us with MCA bigwigs once the album had taken off in the States. We are seen being presented with our first gold record, which was actually a Brenda Lee Award, as Superstar had sold so quickly that MCA hadn't had time to press our gold records, but needed a photograph of us getting one pronto.

One of my principal reasons for being glad that MCA was our label was that Brenda Lee was our stablemate, although we never met the great lady. We did, however, meet Neil Diamond, and we got as many free Brenda Lee records as we wanted. We wondered while recording the album if there were any songs that could be chart hits. The original single by Murray of the title song having done quite well in several territories. The obvious candidate was I don't know how to love him. We wondered if it would work for a male singer, which of course, back in those days, meant a lyrical change. We had a go with it one night in the studio with Murray. One, two, three, four.

[15:24] ♪ Musical number: "I Don't Know How to Love Him" — performed by Murray Head ♪

[18:47] Tim Rice: Murray Head singing beautifully, but the song doesn't work as I don't know how to love her, so he kind of gave up at half time. We did get one or two official recordings of the song that way round, so to speak, by some fine US singers, such as one version released by Jerry Vale, but it seems an awkward fit even back then. But perhaps it would attract enough attention for us to be commissioned to do something else that would open West End and Broadway doors to us. So it was quite surprising when the album blasted those doors off their hinges. Because of the release of this Deluxe 50th anniversary edition, albeit a year late, I've actually sat down and listened to the entire album again for the first time in ages.

Immodestly, I think it holds up very well, and it's easier to understand now why it's lasted than it was for me to understand its appeal at the time. The music is, of course, top-notch, but even Andrew's brilliant score would not have made such an impact without a story that so many around the world, from a Christian-based culture or not, have been affected by, whether believers, non-believers, or simply indifferent. It taught me, as I've kept banging on about ever since, that story is king, more important than either music or lyrics. The best score in the world cannot thrive as it should with a weak tale to tell. In late 1969, when we recorded the one song Superstar with my even then old pal Murray Head for a trial single, before we were given the go-ahead for the entire album, we needed a B-side, which is included, of course, in the Deluxe edition.

It's the Gethsemane tune reprised instrumentally as John 1941, not a reference to Pearl Harbor, as some thought in America, but to the chapter and verse of the fourth gospel. It features a brilliantly manic piano solo by Mick Weaver, aka Winder K. Frog. Here's John 1941.

[21:01] Tim Rice: Now, in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden, a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid out.

[23:41] Tim Rice: That was episode fifty-four of my podcast, Get Onto My Cloud, written and presented by me, Tim Rice, and produced immaculately and religiously by Peter Hobbs.