The Alan Parsons Project was a British rock band active between 1975 and 1990, whose core membership consisted of producer, audio engineer, musician and composer Alan Parsons and singer, songwriter and pianist Eric Woolfson. They were accompanied by varying session musicians and some relatively consistent session players such as guitarist Ian Bairnson, arranger Andrew Powell, bassist and vocalist David Paton, drummer Stuart Elliott, and vocalists Lenny Zakatek and Chris Rainbow. Parsons and Woolfson shared writing credits on almost all of the Project's songs, with Parsons producing or co-producing all of the band's recordings. The Alan Parsons Project released eleven studio albums in its 15-year career, the most successful being I Robot (1977) and Eye in the Sky (1982). Many of their albums are conceptual in nature and focus on science fiction, supernatural, literary and sociological themes. Among the group's most popular songs are "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You", "Games People Play", "Time", "Sirius"/"Eye in the Sky" and "Don't Answer Me". Career 1974–1976: Formation and debut Alan Parsons met Eric Woolfson in the canteen of Abbey Road Studios in the summer of 1974. Parsons acted as Assistant Engineer on the Beatles' albums Abbey Road (1969) and Let It Be (1970), engineered Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), and produced several acts for EMI Records. Woolfson, a songwriter and composer, was working as a session pianist while composing material for a concept album based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe. Woolfson's idea was to manage Alan and help his already successful production career. This was the start of their longstanding friendly business relationship. He managed Parsons' career as a producer and engineer through a string of successes, including Pilot, Steve Harley, Cockney Rebel, John Miles, Al Stewart, Ambrosia, and the Hollies. Woolfson came up with the idea of making an album based on developments in the film industry—the focal point of the films' promotion shifted from film stars to directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick. If the film industry was becoming a director's medium, Woolfson felt the music business might well become a producer's medium. Recalling his earlier Edgar Allan Poe material, Woolfson saw a way to combine his and Parsons's talents. Parsons produced and engineered songs written and composed by the two, and the first Alan Parsons Project was begun. The Project's first album, Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1976), released by 20th