Eric Woolfson, who died on 2 December, 2009, was a multi-talented music maker who was one half of the creative team behind the prog rock outfit The Alan Parsons Project.

Along with the eponymous Parsons (renowned engineer of The Beatles and Pink Floyd ), Woolfson was responsible for writing the group’s catalogue of ten concept albums, which were inspired by writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and Isaac Asimov .

The Alan Parsons Project, who found success in America and Europe rather than their homeland, featured a rich range of guest talents and session musicians, but Woolfson took vocal duties on some of their biggest hits, such as Time and Eye in the Sky.

Eric Woolfson was born in Glasgow on 18 March, 1945. He was a competent musician during his childhood and was working as professional pianist by the age of 18. After being signed by Rolling Stones producer Andrew Oldham, he wrote songs for the likes of Marianne Faithfull, The Tremeloes, Marmalade, Dave Berry and Peter Noone. He also collaborated with the up-and-coming Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.

In the 1970s he began managing artists, including Carl Douglas of Kung Fu Fighting fame, and this led to his meeting Alan Parsons.

In 1975 they began work on The Alan Parsons Project, a working title that became the name of their ‘band’. Between then and 1987 they were able to combine their respective talents to create atmospheric and stirring recorded music. They never played live (though Alan Parsons would perform the songs with his ‘Live Project’ in the 1990s) and split in the late ’80s over disagreements as to the direction of the Project.

Woolfson next went onto turn Freudiana, an unfinished Project album about Sigmund Freud, into a stage musical that premiered in 1990. He went on to create several other stage musicals about well known literary and artistic figures.

In 2009 he released The Alan Parsons Project That Never Was, an album of songs rejected by his former partner.