A Teenage Opera
Encyclopedia
A Teenage Opera is a musical project from the 1960s and was the creation of record producer Mark Wirtz
.
since January 1966, when he was experimenting in his London studio and produced a piece of music entitled "A Touch of Velvet – A Sting of Brass", under the name of "Mood Mosaic". Following a string of successful hits, he was asked to join EMI
as an in-house record producer and he accepted, starting in January 1967. He had already seen Pink Floyd
start their career and he personally recommended them to be signed but thought the task of producing them would be better left to fellow producer Norman Smith. Wirtz decided to work with another band he had enjoyed, The In Crowd, who soon changed their name to Tomorrow. According to Wirtz, he dreamed up the idea of Grocer Jack soon after being contracted to EMI and in February 1967 shared the idea with his engineer Geoff Emerick, who agreed to work on it. They decided to call it Excerpt from A Teenage Opera, to imply there was more to come and the recording was produced as part of the Mood Mosaic project. The basic concept of A Teenage Opera was a series of sketches featuring different characters who lived in a fantasy village. These stories were to be told by a young man to a young girl. Wirtz intended for the final project to be animated and later compared it to the Yellow Submarine by The Beatles
. Wirtz used members of Tomorrow to produce the first recording.
was asked to overdub the guitar
. Wirtz had the character of Jack in his imagination but asked Keith West
to write the lyrics for it. After West heard the music, he wrote the lyrics straightaway. Soon after, the single was recorded at Abbey Road Studios
. The engineer, Geoff Emerick
, who was working with The Beatles
' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
album at the time, recorded the song in true stereo, a rarity at the time, with all the latest technology that was available. The song itself featured the "Opera" trademark, the children's chorus, with singers from Corona Stage School.
was released on 28 July 1967 and was an instant hit. It was played continuously throughout the summer, later known as the Summer of Love
and was helped into its number 2 spot by being played on pirate radio station
s, particularly Radio London
and Radio Caroline
. It was also featured on the very first broadcast of Radio 1
on 30 September 1967. It was only kept off the number 1 spot by Engelbert Humperdinck
's The Last Waltz
and the enormous success of Grocer Jack got the media's attention. Rumours began circulating about the rest of the project; according to one source, the entire project had been completed by September and there was talk of a musical starring Cliff Richard
. Another single was produced in October, "Sam," with West on vocals and Howe on guitar again. However, it did not get above 38 in the chart. Despite Radio 1
DJ
Tony Blackburn
helping promote it and Wirtz creating a special edited airplay version, the song was a failure, as it simply did not have nearly as much publicity as Grocer Jack did and was played a lot less. The fact the pirate stations had been shut down did not help things either. Following this, West made the decision to leave the project. He found it difficult to work between two very different projects and it confused fans. Wirtz meanwhile completed (He's Our Dear Old) Weatherman, which had started out as The Paranoiac Woodcutter. It was the most complex recording so far, containing more than 100 different sounds. However, like "Sam", it received very little airplay, due to Radio 1's inability to play it. Wirtz had already begun working on Tomorrow's album and recorded a remake of Hallucinations for single release. It was renamed to "Mr Rainbow" and Wirtz performed it himself. It was released in August 1967, with Wirtz using the pseudonym of Steve Flynn. Wirtz took another track from the album, Shy Boy and it was re-recorded by Kippington Lodge. These two songs eventually ended up on the final album released in 1996.
Uncut
asserted in April 2004 that "Sam" was a major influence on Pete Townshend
's Tommy.
and Samantha Jones
. In January 1968 Wirtz married Ross Hannaman
and subsequently recorded many songs co-written with her. The track "Barefoot and Tiptoe" was one of their collaborations and featured her voice, as well as the Band of the Irish Guards. It was released as by The Sweetshop but sales were poor. Wirtz was forced to shelve the project and concentrated on Tomorrow, whose album was released in February 1968. However, many songs were released over the years that were intended for the project, for example Dream Dream Dream, performed by Wirtz but credited as Zion De Gallier. An album released in Germany
in 1968 contained what was the basis for the Theme from a Teenage Opera.
Grocer Jack was parodied in the mid '70 on a flexi-disk (Private Eye recordings) released by the satirical magazine, Private Eye
. The words were changed to "Grocer Heath, Grocer Heath, where did you get those awful teeth", referring to the Prime Minister
, Edward Heath
.
The tracks are as follows:
Mark Wirtz
Mark P. Wirtz is an Alsatian born pop music record producer, composer, singer, musician, author, and stand-up comedian. As a producer, Wirtz's most famous output is from the mid to late 1960s, when he worked at Abbey Road Studios with Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick, under contract to EMI...
.
History
According to Wirtz, he had been working on an idea for a rock operaRock opera
A rock opera is a work of rock music that presents a storyline told over multiple parts, songs or sections in the manner of opera. A rock opera differs from a conventional rock album, which usually includes songs that are not unified by a common theme or narrative. More recent developments include...
since January 1966, when he was experimenting in his London studio and produced a piece of music entitled "A Touch of Velvet – A Sting of Brass", under the name of "Mood Mosaic". Following a string of successful hits, he was asked to join EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
as an in-house record producer and he accepted, starting in January 1967. He had already seen Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
start their career and he personally recommended them to be signed but thought the task of producing them would be better left to fellow producer Norman Smith. Wirtz decided to work with another band he had enjoyed, The In Crowd, who soon changed their name to Tomorrow. According to Wirtz, he dreamed up the idea of Grocer Jack soon after being contracted to EMI and in February 1967 shared the idea with his engineer Geoff Emerick, who agreed to work on it. They decided to call it Excerpt from A Teenage Opera, to imply there was more to come and the recording was produced as part of the Mood Mosaic project. The basic concept of A Teenage Opera was a series of sketches featuring different characters who lived in a fantasy village. These stories were to be told by a young man to a young girl. Wirtz intended for the final project to be animated and later compared it to the Yellow Submarine by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
. Wirtz used members of Tomorrow to produce the first recording.
Production
The first song created was the story of Grocer Jack, the local grocer who was taken for granted until he died. Wirtz took an unused backing track from an old recording of his, a song called "Love Will Always Find A Way" and Steve HoweSteve Howe (guitarist)
Stephen James "Steve" Howe is an English guitarist, known for his work with the progressive rock group Yes...
was asked to overdub the guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
. Wirtz had the character of Jack in his imagination but asked Keith West
Keith West
Keith Alan Hopkins, better known by his stage name, Keith West was the lead singer of Tomorrow, a 1960s psychedelic rock band. West composed most of the band's songs...
to write the lyrics for it. After West heard the music, he wrote the lyrics straightaway. Soon after, the single was recorded at Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner...
. The engineer, Geoff Emerick
Geoff Emerick
Geoffrey Emerick is an English recording studio audio engineer, who is best known for his work with The Beatles' albums Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles and Abbey Road...
, who was working with The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by the English rock band The Beatles, released on 1 June 1967 on the Parlophone label and produced by George Martin...
album at the time, recorded the song in true stereo, a rarity at the time, with all the latest technology that was available. The song itself featured the "Opera" trademark, the children's chorus, with singers from Corona Stage School.
Single releases
Grocer Jack (Excerpt from A Teenage Opera)Grocer Jack (Excerpt from A Teenage Opera)
Excerpt from "A Teenage Opera" is a 1967 single by Keith West, produced by Mark Wirtz. It was a big hit in Europe, peaking at number two on the UK Singles Chart. The single was part of a bigger "A Teenage Opera" project....
was released on 28 July 1967 and was an instant hit. It was played continuously throughout the summer, later known as the Summer of Love
Summer of Love
The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, creating a cultural and political rebellion...
and was helped into its number 2 spot by being played on pirate radio station
Pirate radio
Pirate radio is illegal or unregulated radio transmission. The term is most commonly used to describe illegal broadcasting for entertainment or political purposes, but is also sometimes used for illegal two-way radio operation...
s, particularly Radio London
Wonderful Radio London
Radio London, also known as Big L and Wonderful Radio London, was a top 40 offshore commercial station that operated from 16 December 1964 to 14 August 1967, from a ship anchored in the North Sea, three and a half miles off Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, England...
and Radio Caroline
Radio Caroline
Radio Caroline is an English radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O'Rahilly to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopoly...
. It was also featured on the very first broadcast of Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
on 30 September 1967. It was only kept off the number 1 spot by Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck (singer)
Engelbert Humperdinck is a British pop singer, best known for his hits including "Release Me " and "After the Lovin'" as well as "The Last Waltz" .-Early life:...
's The Last Waltz
The Last Waltz (song)
"The Last Waltz" is a song written by Barry Mason and Les Reed. It was one of Engelbert Humperdinck's biggest hits, spending five weeks at number one on the British charts in September and October 1967...
and the enormous success of Grocer Jack got the media's attention. Rumours began circulating about the rest of the project; according to one source, the entire project had been completed by September and there was talk of a musical starring Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....
. Another single was produced in October, "Sam," with West on vocals and Howe on guitar again. However, it did not get above 38 in the chart. Despite Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
DJ
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
Tony Blackburn
Tony Blackburn
Tony Blackburn is an English disc jockey, who broadcast on the "pirate" stations Radio Caroline and Radio London in the 1960s and was the first disc jockey to broadcast on BBC Radio 1 in 1967. In 2002 he was the winner of the ITV reality TV programme I'm a Celebrity.....
helping promote it and Wirtz creating a special edited airplay version, the song was a failure, as it simply did not have nearly as much publicity as Grocer Jack did and was played a lot less. The fact the pirate stations had been shut down did not help things either. Following this, West made the decision to leave the project. He found it difficult to work between two very different projects and it confused fans. Wirtz meanwhile completed (He's Our Dear Old) Weatherman, which had started out as The Paranoiac Woodcutter. It was the most complex recording so far, containing more than 100 different sounds. However, like "Sam", it received very little airplay, due to Radio 1's inability to play it. Wirtz had already begun working on Tomorrow's album and recorded a remake of Hallucinations for single release. It was renamed to "Mr Rainbow" and Wirtz performed it himself. It was released in August 1967, with Wirtz using the pseudonym of Steve Flynn. Wirtz took another track from the album, Shy Boy and it was re-recorded by Kippington Lodge. These two songs eventually ended up on the final album released in 1996.
Uncut
UNCUT (magazine)
Uncut magazine, trademarked as UNCUT, is a monthly publication based in London. It is available across the English-speaking world, and focuses on music, but also includes film and books sections...
asserted in April 2004 that "Sam" was a major influence on Pete Townshend
Pete Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career...
's Tommy.
Other recordings
Wirtz created a lot of material around this time, releasing it under a series of pseudonyms. Much of the music produced in late 1967 became part of the project and was released on the 1996 album. There were two particular recordings that did not survive, "The Sad Story Of Simon And His Bugle" and "Two's Company, Three Thousand's A Crowd". The latter was a musical comedy, with the voices of Tim RiceTim Rice
Sir Timothy Miles Bindon "Tim" Rice is an British lyricist and author.An Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Tony Award and Grammy Award-winning lyricist, Rice is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus...
and Samantha Jones
Samantha Jones (singer)
-External links:*...
. In January 1968 Wirtz married Ross Hannaman
Ross Hannaman
Ross Hannaman was a British singer in the 1960s. She was born Rosalind Judith Hannaman and raised in London. Ross signed to EMI in 1967 to pursue a career in pop music. She was initially managed by Tim Rice, and he and Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote both of her singles and their subsequent b-sides...
and subsequently recorded many songs co-written with her. The track "Barefoot and Tiptoe" was one of their collaborations and featured her voice, as well as the Band of the Irish Guards. It was released as by The Sweetshop but sales were poor. Wirtz was forced to shelve the project and concentrated on Tomorrow, whose album was released in February 1968. However, many songs were released over the years that were intended for the project, for example Dream Dream Dream, performed by Wirtz but credited as Zion De Gallier. An album released in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
in 1968 contained what was the basis for the Theme from a Teenage Opera.
Grocer Jack was parodied in the mid '70 on a flexi-disk (Private Eye recordings) released by the satirical magazine, Private Eye
Private Eye
Private Eye is a fortnightly British satirical and current affairs magazine, edited by Ian Hislop.Since its first publication in 1961, Private Eye has been a prominent critic and lampooner of public figures and entities that it deemed guilty of any of the sins of incompetence, inefficiency,...
. The words were changed to "Grocer Heath, Grocer Heath, where did you get those awful teeth", referring to the Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
, Edward Heath
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....
.
Tracks
In 1996 a CD was released by Wirtz with every track recorded over the years intended for use in A Teenage Opera. Some of the songs (notably the two singles) were remixed in stereo.The tracks are as follows:
- Theme From A Teenage Opera (stereo, and little longer than the original single)
- Festival Of Kings (stereo)
- Grocer Jack (Excerpt from a Teenage Opera) (stereo)
- The Paranoic Woodcutter #1
- Mr Rainbow
- Glory's Theme (All Aboard!)
- On A Saturday
- Possum's Dance
- Auntie Mary's Dress Shop (stereo)
- Love & Occasional Rain (stereo)
- Grocer Jack (Reprise)
- Sam (stereo)
- Farewell to A Broken Doll (stereo)
- (He's Our Dear Old) Weatherman
- Shy Boy
- Grocer Jack's Dream
- Barefoot & Tiptoe
- Knickerbocker Glory
- Dream Dream Dream
- Colonel Brown (stereo)
- Cellophane Mary Jane
- Paranoic Woodcutter #2
- Theme From A Teenage Opera (end titles) (stereo)