A Teenage Opera
| A Teenage Opera | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Soundtrack album by Mark Wirtz and Tomorrow | |
| Released | 1996 |
| Recorded | 1967 |
| Genre | Musical |
| Label | EMI |
| Producer | Mark Wirtz |
A Teenage Opera is a musical project from the 1960s and was the creation of record producer Mark Wirtz.
According to Wirtz, he had been working on an idea for a rock opera 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 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.
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 Howe 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.
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