Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

Jeff Wayne

 
Artist: Jeff Wayne
Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Pop Artists

Similar Artists:

Yes, Genesis, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, David Bowie, Jon Anderson, Renaissance, Happy the Man, Steve Hackett, Babe Ruth, Ian Anderson

Followers:

Cairo

Performed Songs By:

Gary Osborne

Worked With:

Jo Partridge, Herbie Flowers, Roger Daltrey

Formal Connection With:

Richard Burton, Phil Lynott, David Bedford, Chris Spedding, Justin Hayward, David Essex, Rick Wakeman
See Jeff Wayne Lyrics
  • Active: '70s, '80s, '90s, 2000s
  • Genres: Rock
  • Instrument: Keyboards
  • Representative Albums: "The War of the Worlds," "Highlights of War of the Worlds," "ULLAdubULLA: The Remix Album"

Biography

Jeff Wayne was already a well-known figure in British rock circles when he created The War of the Worlds, the piece for which he would remain known to the public for more than a quarter century after. He was born in New York, the son of actor Jerry Wayne, but he ended up being raised for four years in England, when his father was cast in the role of Sky Masterson in the original London production of Guys and Dolls. In New York, he attended Forest Hills High School and his keen interest in music, which encompassed both classical and jazz, resulted in Wayne's studying privately -- his teachers included John Mehegan. He spent the rest of his youth in California and initially attended college as a journalism student before switching to music, and he supported himself in those years playing keyboards with various bands, when he wasn't indulging in his other great passion, tennis. Eventually, he chose music as his career path, and was helped along considerably when his father produced a musical play on the West End entitled Two Cities (which starred a young Edward Woodward) -- a musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities; that production may well have set Wayne on the path to the creation of his magnum opus. With Two Cities to his credit, Wayne jumped into music composition and production feet first, amassing substantial professional credits in television music and commercial jingles, and then film music, during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He moved into record production in a big way in the early 1970s when he produced Rock On, the David Essex album that yielded a number one hit with its title track (which also earned a Grammy nomination). His production work on Essex's two subsequent albums, and on the movie Stardust -- starring Essex -- brought him to the attention of the rock music community in England and earned him the loyalty of such players as Chris Spedding and Jo Partridge, who would loom large in his future projects. Among the attributes that made Wayne so popular with these musicians, the most notable were his precise (and very demanding) musical sensibilities, which sometimes meant running into a large number of takes but also held his artists -- singers and musicians alike -- to a very high standard, akin to that of classical music, with very impressive results on record, and he had a great ability to work with what were then very primitive synthesizers, generating unique sounds that crossed freely between classical and pop. Wayne spent a big chunk of 1977 and a piece of 1978 working on War of the Worlds, for which he recruited some of the top musical and acting talent of the era, including Richard Burton (as narrator), singers Justin Hayward and Phil Lynott (and Essex), and actress/singer Julie Covington. Based on various accounts of the sessions, one reason that resulting album worked as well as it did was that overdubbing on the instrumental tracks was held to a minimum -- when Wayne and Spedding or Partridge crossed swords, as it were, on synthesizer and guitar, respectively, or Wayne spun an elaborate electronic keyboard line over a Herbie Flowers bass part, everyone was actually playing at once, generating the music live in the studio. The elaborately produced and packaged double-album, a strangely compelling mix of progressive rock, hard rock, classical, and literary influences, was a huge hit in England, where it rode the charts for six years and became the biggest selling English "soundtrack" (it wasn't a soundtrack, of course, or a cast album, but it usually got classified as one or the other, based on its dramatic content) in a quarter of a century. It sold well throughout Europe and most of the rest of the world -- a specific German-language adaptation, narrated by Curd Jergens, was also prepared for that market. Ironically, it had the chance to be much bigger than that in America when the single extracted from the first LP, "Forever Autumn," sung by Justin Hayward, began getting major airplay -- based on radio play alone, the 45 nudged into the top 40, but the record company was so slow getting actual copies of the single into stores so that people could buy it, that by the time the record was available for purchase, it had already started down the charts and was being returned from many retailers. As a result, the album never found more than a wide cult following in the United States. The experience of working with Wayne was so good for Justin Hayward that he chose the producer to work on his next solo LP, Night Flight, and Wayne was also the producer of the music for the movie MacVicar, starring Roger Daltrey. Following a brace of television-related projects, in 1992 he unveiled his next conceptual project, the musical version of Spartacus, which included Anthony Hopkins and singer (and future star actress) Catherine Zeta-Jones in its cast. He has also appeared as a guest conductor with the London Symphony Orchestra, leading them in the performance of highlights from his War of the Worlds score. In the mid- '90s, that album was remastered for the European market, and he also did a remixed and remastered version of highlights from the album with new vocals and other embellishments. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
Search unanswered questions...

Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics

Actor: Jeff Wayne
Top
Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Actors

Biography

Jeff Wayne is a composer and music producer who has worked in film, television, and theater as well as rock music since the mid-'60s. The son of stage actor-turned-director Jerry Wayne, Jeff Wayne was born in New York City but spent four of his prime childhood years in London where his father was working on stage creating the role of Sky Masterson in the original West End production of Guys and Dolls. He had a special interest in music and studied classical as well as jazz and eventually chose music as his career after attending college in California. Wayne made his debut as a composer with the West End play Two Cities, a musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. He wrote and produced music for commercials and established himself in rock music through his work with singer (and sometimes actor) David Essex, which led to Wayne producing on the soundtrack to the Essex-starring feature film Stardust. Wayne's other credits from this period include the scores for several television features, most notably The Knowledge, a documentary about London cab drivers and their required familiarity with the city which was shown around the world. His 1978 double-LP concept album The War of the Worlds, which included Richard Burton as narrator (Curd Jürgens narrated a specially produced German version) and actor/singers Julie Covington and Essex, is often misidentified as a soundtrack or cast album but was the biggest selling British release in those categories in over 20 years. From there he moved on to writing and producing the score and the accompanying soundtrack album for the 1980 movie McVicar -- his first theatrical film credit -- starring Roger Daltrey, which became a number one LP. His credits during the '80s included a great deal of music written for various sports and news programs on British television. He returned to the making of concept albums in 1992 with the release of his CD adaptation of Spartacus, which included in its cast Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones, who was then known principally as a singer. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Wikipedia: Jeff Wayne
Top
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Jeff Wayne

Wayne in 2007
Background information
Born July 1, 1943 (1943-07-01) (age 66)
Forest Hills, Queens, New York
Origin London
Instruments Piano, Keyboards
Years active 1966–present
Website http://www.thewaroftheworlds.com

Jeffrey "Jeff" Wayne (born July 1, 1943, in Forest Hills, Queens, New York) is a musician mostly known for his musical version of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. He also wrote several advertising jingles in the 1970s which appeared on television in the United Kingdom, notably the Gordon's Gin commercial, which was then covered by The Human League. Other well-known themes he wrote include Good Morning Britain (TV-am) and London's LBC radio.

Contents

Early life

Jeff Wayne was born 1 July 1943 in Forest Hills, Queens.[1] His father, Jerry Wayne, was an actor, singer and theatre producer who had a profound influence on Jeff's life in many ways, inspiring his love of music and of tennis, and introducing him to H. G. Wells' book The War of the Worlds. Wayne took classical piano lessons from the age of five, moving onto jazz piano, and was taught tennis by his father. He spent four years of his childhood in the UK after his father won the role of romantic gambler Sky Masterson in the original West End musical production of Guys and Dolls.

Four years later they returned to New York. Wayne graduated from Stephen Halsey Jr. High and then attended Forest Hills High School for one year (including playing for its tennis team), before moving to California. He graduated from Grant High School, then from Los Angeles Valley College with a journalism degree. He also played keyboards in local bands and coached tennis to support himself through those years. After completing his journalism degree he switched to music, and played keyboards briefly with the Sandpipers.

Musical career

In 1966, his father Jerry offered Jeff Wayne the opportunity to compose the score for his upcoming West End musical Two Cities based on Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities which ran at London's Palace Theatre. The musical was a great success, winning for Edward Woodward the Evening Standard Award for Best Male Performance in a Musical for 1968-69. Returning to the UK, Wayne's musical career truly began. He became a record producer and helped produce David Essex's album Rock On. Essex was later recruited by Wayne as a voice actor in The War of the Worlds, playing the part of The Artilleryman.

The War of the Worlds

In 1978, Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds was released and achieved international success, including worldwide hit singles "The Eve of the War" and "Forever Autumn", with vocals performed by Justin Hayward in both. It has also won two Ivor Novello Awards along with The Best Recording in Science Fiction and Fantasy, (the judges included Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Alfred Hitchcock)."The Eve of the War" was subsequently adopted by the offshore radio station Radio Delmare as its theme tune. The record was re-released in 1995 on audio CD with five tracks remastered and added onto the second disk that were mostly created without Wayne's input.

Later work

Wayne kept a fairly low profile in the decade after The War of the Worlds, but continued to be active in composing and producing. He produced the music for the movie McVicar, released in 1980; he composed the tune for the Fry's Turkish Delight advertisement in 1981, the theme tune for Good Morning Britain in 1982 on TV-am, and composed additional music for the 1984 album Beyond the Planets, Kevin Peek and Rick Wakeman's progressive rock reworking of Holst's orchestral suite.

In 1992 Jeff Wayne released Spartacus, his first major release since The War of the Worlds. It had many of the ingredients for success: a stellar cast, including Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta Jones, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and Marillion's Fish; a libretto by Gary Osborne, who had produced most of the haunting lyrics of The War of the Worlds; and a story combining powerful themes of oppression, desperation, love and death. Despite its potential, however, the album was a disappointment both artistically and commercially, with none of the engaging musicality or novel orchestration of The War of the Worlds.

In 1998, Jeff Wayne was involved in producing Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds, a PC computer game including 45 minutes of music from his Musical Version of The War of the Worlds which was re-scored and remixed in a newer electronica style with techno beats.

In 2004, Jeff Wayne and Ollie Record Productions began work on a feature-length animated CGI film version of his Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, slated for release in 2007. The $48 million project will make use of both state-of-the-art CGI and motion capture technology.

In the summer of 2005 following over a year's work remixing (stereo and surround sound), repackaging and remastering, The War of The Worlds was re-released in the UK and Internationally. The album became one of the big hits of the year occupying 10 consecutive weeks in the Top 10 of the UK Album charts. The new release pushed sales to 3 million double albums in the UK, and approaching 14 million worldwide. It is now in the upper ends of the all-time best selling list since charts began, as well as amongst the elite of the longest running albums in chart history.

Also In 2005 it was announced that the musical would be going on a UK tour in April 2006. After the 2006 tour, the live show was taken to Australia and New Zealand before returning to further dates in the UK during December 2007. The show, produced by Damian Collier made use of a 10-piece band and a 48-piece string orchestra, as well as voice actors, screen projected images and animatronics to recreate the original album on stage. Universal Pictures released a DVD of the show, filmed at Wembley Arena using 23 high definition cameras and directed by David Mallet.

His first television series, The Book of Tennis Chronicles, began broadcasting worldwide in 2005 (distributed by Fox Sports) and parallels the lives and tribulations of the greatest tennis players, and events, set against the most dramatic and quirky moments in world history, starting in 1877 and up to present time. Wayne created and produced the 8 half-hours series as well as scoring its music. The series was Executive Produced by Damian Collier, Jeff Wayne's producing partner.

Tennis

Tennis has remained an active part of Wayne's life; he has won at club, county, and national levels including, the British National Indoor Veterans singles and doubles titles, and the National Clay Court doubles. In 1992 he partnered his long time friend and former Great Britain No. 1 and Davis Cup captain Roger Taylor at the European Veteran Championships. 1999 also saw Wayne represent Great Britain competing for the Austria Cup in Spain, and achieved an ITF world ranking in his age group. In 2008 Wayne began his 19th year as Hertfordshire County Men's Captain (winners of this years National County Week title) and was elected into the International Lawn Tennis Club of Great Britain. Wayne has also played many pro-am tournaments including for: Muscular Dystrophy, Olympic Games fund raising, and Save the Children.

Personal life

Jeff and Geraldine live in Hertfordshire, England, and have four children: Anna-Marie Wayne - an actress now based in California, Jemma Wayne - an author with her debut book Bare Necessities published September 2005, sons Zeb Wayne, DJ'ing on the London club scene as well as composing and producing music, and Joab Wayne at school and training to become a professional tennis player.

Personal appearances

Jeff continues to make many personal appearances to meet his fans at film and collectibles shows in Birmingham, Milton Keynes and London.

Discography

References

  1. ^ Jeff Wayne, Sony Music. Accessed June 18, 2009. "Jeff Wayne was born in Forest Hills, New York and discovered early in his life two passions that have remained with him – music and tennis."

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Artist. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Actor. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Jeff Wayne".  Read more

Related answers
» More
 
Answer these
» More

Mentioned in

» More» More