Day Tripping: December 20

Eye in the Sky

Born in 1948 in London, Alan Parsons began working as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road Studios when he was eighteen years old.

He earned his first record credit on the Beatles’ last recorded album, Abbey Road. After that, Parsons worked with Paul McCartney on Wings Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway. His engineering work caught the ears of members of Pink Floyd, and Alan would soon earn his first Grammy nomination for Dark Side of the Moon.

Being an accomplished musician as well. Alan’s production style often involved performance contributions. So when he was asked to produce Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, he turned them down to pursue his own work with the Alan Parsons Project.

Although his albums gained critical acclaim, Alan never toured with his group who was mostly made up of studio musicians. That gave Parsons time to produce Al Stewart’s breakthrough album, Year of the Cat. The title song displays Alan Parsons’ influence as he changed it from a rock song to more of a jazz fusion and played sax on the record.

Parsons is also a gifted keyboard player, guitarist, flutist, and singer. He lent his voice to Time on Dark Side of the Moon and his keyboard is featured throughout his solo work. For a short time, he also became vice-president of EMI Records in 1999.

Considering the body of his work and the major contributions he made on some of the greatest rock pieces in history, Alan Parsons didn’t win his first Grammy until 2018. He’d been nominated thirteen times.

Musical Ride

(Just Like) Starting Over became the first solo work of John Lennon to go #1 in the UK. The song from his last album Double Fantasy topped the chart twelve days after his death in 1980.

Gone But Not Forgotten

Astronomer and astrobiologist Carl Sagan made space exploration and technology accessible to the layperson through the force of his personality. Sagan died in 1996 at the age of 62.

Notable Births

1922 — George Roy Hill: “People Watch Luck Go by Them and They’re Blind — They Never Reach out and Grab It.”

1983 — Jonah Hill: “It’s always better to shock people and change people’s expectations than to give them exactly what they think you can do.”

K. Barrett Maria Rattray Maryam Merchant Dr. Mehmet Yildiz Tree Langdon Myriam Ben Salem Phil Truman Chelsea Mandler MAT Terry Mansfield Hollie Petit, Ph.D. Terry Trueman Dr. Preeti Singh John Gruber Bill Abbate James G Brennan ScienceDuuude Marcus Liam Ireland Claire Kelly Noorain Hassan, BMS Amy Pierovich David Acaster Nora Thewriteyard David Perlmutter Joe Luca Holly Kellums Michael Burg, MD Lucy Dan Dave Logan

All previous Day Tripping entries are available at the following links:

The Story Of Day Tripping Through History What’s Past Is Often Present

A comprehensive directory for Day Tripping