Jesus Christ Superstar is a 1970 rock opera

Rock opera

A rock opera is a work of rock music that presents a storyline told over multiple parts, songs or sections in the manner of opera. A rock opera differs from a conventional rock album, which usually includes songs that are not unified by a common theme or narrative. More recent developments include...

 by Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...

 and Tim Rice

Tim Rice

Sir Timothy Miles Bindon "Tim" Rice is an British lyricist and author.An Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Tony Award and Grammy Award-winning lyricist, Rice is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus...

. The album musical

Album musical

An album musical is a type of recording that sounds like an original cast album but is created specifically for the recording medium and is complete entertainment product in itself, rather than just promoting or reflecting an existing or planned musical theatre production or revue...

 is a musical dramatisation of the last week of the life of Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 Christ, beginning with his entry into Jerusalem

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in all four Canonical Gospels. ....

 and ending with the Crucifixion

Passion (Christianity)

The Passion is the Christian theological term used for the events and suffering – physical, spiritual, and mental – of Jesus in the hours before and including his trial and execution by crucifixion...

.
It was originally banned by the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 on grounds of being "sacrilegious."
The album's story is based in large part on the Synoptic Gospels

Synoptic Gospels

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes exactly the same wording. This degree of parallelism in content, narrative arrangement, language, and sentence structures can only be...

 and Fulton J. Sheen

Fulton J. Sheen

Servant of God Fulton John Sheen, born Peter John Sheen was an American archbishop of the Catholic Church known for his preaching and especially his work on television and radio...

's Life of Christ, which compares and calibrates all four Gospels. However, greater emphasis is placed on the interpersonal relationships of the major characters, in particular, Jesus, Judas

Judas Iscariot

Judas Iscariot was, according to the New Testament, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. He is best known for his betrayal of Jesus to the hands of the chief priests for 30 pieces of silver.-Etymology:...

 and Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...

, relationships that are not described in depth in the Gospels.

The album reached #1 on the Billboard chart

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

 in 1971 and served as a launching pad for numerous stage productions

Jesus Christ Superstar

Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Tim Rice. The musical started off as a rock opera concept recording before its first staging on Broadway in 1971...

 on Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 and in the West End

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

. The original 1970 boxed-set issue of this 2-record set was packaged in the U.S. with a special thin brown cardboard outer box which contained the 2 vinyl records and a 28-page libretto.

Track listing

All compositions written by Tim Rice

Tim Rice

Sir Timothy Miles Bindon "Tim" Rice is an British lyricist and author.An Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Tony Award and Grammy Award-winning lyricist, Rice is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus...

 (lyrics and book) and Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...

 (music) except Herods Song.

Side one

1. "Overture" – 3:59
2. "Heaven on Their Minds" – 4:23
3. "What's the Buzz/Strange Thing Mystifying" – 4:13
4. "Everything's Alright" – 5:15
5. "This Jesus Must Die" – 3:36

Side two

6. "Hosanna" – 2:07
7. "Simon Zealotes/Poor Jerusalem" – 4:49
8. "Pilate's Dream" – 1:28
9. "The Temple" – 4:43
10. "Everything's Alright (reprise)" – 0:34
11. "I Don't Know How to Love Him
    I Don't Know How to Love Him
    "I Don't Know How to Love Him" is a song from the 1970 rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice , a torch ballad sung by the character of Mary Magdalene who in Jesus Christ Superstar is presented as bearing an unrequited love for the title character...
    
    " – 3:36
12. "Damned for All Time/Blood Money" – 5:11

Side three

1. "The Last Supper" – 7:10
2. "Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say)" – 5:33
3. "The Arrest" – 3:24
4. "Peter's Denial" – 1:27
5. "Pilate and Christ/Hosanna (reprise)" – 2:46
6. "Herod's Song (Try It and See)" – 3:02

Side four

7. "Judas' Death" – 4:17
8. "Trial Before Pilate (Including the Thirty-Nine Lashes)" – 5:13
9. "Superstar
   Superstar (Jesus Christ Superstar song)
   "Superstar" is the title song from the 1970 rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. It was released as a single in 1969, before the album was completed. Sung by Murray Head with the Trinidad Singers, it reached number 78 on first release. Murray Head reached...
   
   " – 4:16
10. "The Crucifixion" – 4:04
11. "John Nineteen: Forty-One" – 2:10

Main Players

• Ian Gillan
  Ian Gillan
  Ian Gillan is an English rock music vocalist and songwriter, best known as the lead singer and lyricist for Deep Purple. During his career Gillan also fronted his own band, had a year-long stint as the vocalist for Black Sabbath, and sang the role of Jesus in the original recording of Andrew Lloyd...
  
   - Jesus Christ
  Jesus
  Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
  
  
• Murray Head
  Murray Head
  Murray Seafield Saint-George Head is a British actor and singer, most recognised for his international hit songs "Superstar" and "One Night in Bangkok" and his album Say It Ain't So...
  
   - Judas Iscariot
  Judas Iscariot
  Judas Iscariot was, according to the New Testament, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. He is best known for his betrayal of Jesus to the hands of the chief priests for 30 pieces of silver.-Etymology:...
  
  
• Yvonne Elliman
  Yvonne Elliman
  Yvonne Marianne Elliman is an American singer who performed for four years in the first cast of Jesus Christ Superstar...
  
   - Mary Magdalene
  Mary Magdalene
  Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...
  
  
• Victor Brox
  Victor Brox
  Victor Brox is a British blues musician from Manchester, England, widely believed to have been described by Jimi Hendrix and Tina Turner as their favourite white blues singer....
  
   - Caiaphas, High Priest
  Caiaphas
  Joseph, son of Caiaphas, Hebrew יוסף בַּר קַיָּפָא or Yosef Bar Kayafa, commonly known simply as Caiaphas in the New Testament, was the Roman-appointed Jewish high priest who is said to have organized the plot to kill Jesus...
  
  
• Brian Keith - Annas
  Annas
  Annas [also Ananus or Ananias], son of Seth , was appointed by the Roman legate Quirinius as the first High Priest of the newly formed Roman province of Iudaea in 6 AD; just after the Romans had deposed Archelaus, Ethnarch of Judaea, thereby putting Judaea directly under Roman rule.Annas officially...
  
  
• John Gustafson
  John Gustafson (musician)
  John "Gus" Gustafson also known as Johnny Gustafson is an influential bass player who has had a thirty eight year recording and live performance career...
  
   - Simon Zealotes
  Simon the Zealot
  The apostle called Simon Zelotes, Simon the Zealot, in Luke 6:15 and Acts 1:13; and Simon Kananaios or Simon Cananeus , was one of the most obscure among the apostles of Jesus. Little is recorded of him aside from his name...
  
  
• Barry Dennen
  Barry Dennen
  Barry Dennen is an American actor, singer, and writer.Dennen was born in Chicago, Illinois. In New York City from 1960 to 1963, he had a relationship with Barbra Streisand, including living together for a year, during which time he helped her develop the nightclub act that began her successful...
  
   - Pontius Pilate
  Pontius Pilate
  Pontius Pilatus , known in the English-speaking world as Pontius Pilate , was the fifth Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, from AD 26–36. He is best known as the judge at Jesus' trial and the man who authorized the crucifixion of Jesus...
  
  
• Paul Davis - Peter
  Saint Peter
  Saint Peter or Simon Peter was an early Christian leader, who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The son of John or of Jonah and from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, his brother Andrew was also an apostle...
  
  
• Mike d'Abo
  Mike d'Abo
  Michael David "Mike" d'Abo is an English singer and songwriter, best known as the former lead vocalist of Manfred Mann.-Biography:...
  
   - King Herod
  Herod Antipas
  Herod Antipater , known by the nickname Antipas, was a 1st-century AD ruler of Galilee and Perea, who bore the title of tetrarch...
  
  

Supporting Players

• Annette Brox - Maid by the Fire
• Paul Raven - Priest
• Pat Arnold
  P. P. Arnold
  P. P. Arnold is an American-born soul singer who enjoyed considerable success in the United Kingdom in the 1960s and beyond.-Early life:...
  
   - Background vocals
• Tony Ashton
  Tony Ashton
  Tony Ashton was an English rock pianist, keyboardist, singer, composer, producer and artist.-Biography:...
  
   - Background vocals
• Peter Barnfeather - Background vocals
• Madeline Bell
  Madeline Bell
  Madeline Bell is an American soul singer, who became famous as a performer in the United Kingdom during the 1960s, having arrived from the US in the gospel show Black Nativity in 1962, with vocal group The Bradford Singers.-Career:She worked as a session singer, most notably backing for Dusty...
  
   - Background vocals
• Brian Bennett - Background vocals
• Lesley Duncan
  Lesley Duncan
  Lesley Duncan was an English singer-songwriter, best known for her work during the 1970s. She received a lot of airplay on British radio stations such as BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2, but never achieved great commercial success.Duncan was born in Stockton-on-Tees...
  
   - Background vocals
• Kay Garner - Background vocals
• Barbara Kay - Background vocals
• Neil Lancaster - Background vocals
• Alan M. O'Duffy - Background vocals
• Terry Saunders - Background vocals

• Choir conducted by Geoffrey Mitchell
• Children's choir conducted by Alan Doggett on "Overture"
• The Trinidad Singers, under the leadership of Horace James, on "Superstar"

Musicians

• Neil Hubbard
  Neil Hubbard
  Neil Hubbard is a British guitarist who performed with Juicy Lucy , The Grease Band, Bluesology, Joe Cocker, Roxy Music, Kokomo, B.B. King, Kevin Rowland, and Tony O'Malley; and played on the original 1970 concept album, Jesus Christ Superstar....
  
   - electric guitar
  Electric guitar
  An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
  
  
• Henry McCulloch
  Henry McCullough
  Henry McCullough Henry McCullough Henry McCullough (born Henry Campbell Liken McCullough, 21 July 1943, Portstewart, Northern Ireland is an Irish guitarist, vocalist and songwriter, who has played guitar in such bands as Sweeney's Men, Spooky Tooth, Paul McCartney & Wings, and The Grease Band. He...
  
   - electric guitar, acoustic guitar
  Steel-string acoustic guitar
  A steel-string acoustic guitar is a modern form of guitar descended from the classical guitar, but strung with steel strings for a brighter, louder sound...
  
  
• Chris Mercer - tenor sax
  Tenor saxophone
  The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...
  
  
• Peter Robinson - piano
  Piano
  The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
  
  , electric piano
  Electric piano
  An electric piano is an electric musical instrument.Electric pianos produce sounds mechanically and the sounds are turned into electrical signals by pickups. Unlike a synthesizer, the electric piano is not an electronic instrument, but electro-mechanical. The earliest electric pianos were invented...
  
  , Organ
  Organ (music)
  The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
  
  , positive organ
  Positive organ
  A positive organ is a small, usually one-manual, pipe organ that is built to be more or less mobile. It was common in sacred and secular music between the 10th and the 18th centuries, in chapels and small churches, as a chamber organ and for the basso continuo in ensemble works...
  
  
• Bruce Rowland
  Bruce Rowland (drummer)
  Bruce Rowland is an English rock drummer best known for his memberships of The Grease Band and folk rock band Fairport Convention. He is also a prolific session musician.-Early career:...
  
   - drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  , percussion
  Percussion instrument
  A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
  
  
• Allan Spenner
  Allan Spenner
  Alan Henry Spenner was a British bass player who performed with Wynder K. Frog, The Grease Band, ABC, David Coverdale, David Soul, Joe Cocker, Lynda Carter, Peter Frampton, Ted Nugent, Murray Head, Kokomo, Roxy Music, and played on the original 1970 concept album Jesus Christ Superstar.Spenner...
  
   - bass guitar
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  

Other musicians

• Harold Beckett - trumpet
  Trumpet
  The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
  
  
• Anthony Brooke - bassoon
  Bassoon
  The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
  
  
• James Browne - horns
  Horn (instrument)
  The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
  
  
• Jim Buck, Sr. - horns
• Jim Buck, Jr. - horns
• John Burdon - horns
• Joseph Castaldini - bassoon
• Norman Cave - piano
• Jeff Clyne
  Jeff Clyne
  Jeffrey Ovid 'Jeff' Clyne was a British jazz bassist .-Biography:...
  
   - bass guitar
• Ciclone - Saxophone
  Saxophone
  The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
  
  
• Les Condon - trumpet
• Keith Christie - trombone
• Alan Doggett - principal Conductor
  Conducting
  Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
  
  , Moog synthesizer
  Moog synthesizer
  Moog synthesizer may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for older-generation analog music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled...
  
  
• Ian Hamer - trumpet
• Ian Herbert - clarinet
  Clarinet
  The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
  
  
• Clive Hicks - guitar
• Karl Jenkins
  Karl Jenkins
  -Other works:*Adiemus: Live — live versions of Adiemus music*Palladio *Eloise *Imagined Oceans *The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace...
  
   - piano
• Frank Jones - trombone
  Trombone
  The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
  
  
• Bill LeSage - drums
• John Marshall
  John Stanley Marshall
  John Stanley Marshall, better known as John Marshall, born 28 August 1941 in Isleworth, Middlesex, is an English drummer. He was a founding member of the jazz rock band Nucleus and has worked with various other jazz and rock bands and musicians, among them J.J...
  
   - drums
• Andrew McGavin - horns
• Anthony Moore - trombone
• Douglas Moore - horns
• Peter Morgan - bass guitar
• Chris Spedding
  Chris Spedding
  Chris Spedding is an English rock and roll and jazz guitarist, best known for his session work. Allmusic states - "Spedding is one of the UK's most versatile session guitarists, and has had a long career on two continents that saw him tackle nearly every style of rock and roll, as well as...
  
   - guitar
• Louis Stewart - guitar
• Chris Taylor - flute
  Flute
  The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
  
  
• Steve Vaughan - guitar
• Mike Vickers - Moog synthesizer
• Brian Warren - flute
• Mick Weaver - piano, organ
• Andrew Lloyd Webber
  Andrew Lloyd Webber
  Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
  
   - piano, organ, Moog synthesizer
• Alan Weighall - bass guitar
• Kenny Wheeler
  Kenny Wheeler
  Kenneth Vincent John Wheeler, OC is a Canadian composer and trumpet and flugelhorn player, based in the U.K. since the 1950s....
  
   - trumpet
• Strings of the City of London Ensemble

Chart positions

{| class="wikitable"
!Album
!Year
!Chart
!Position
|-
|Jesus Christ Superstar
|1971
|Billboard 200
|1
|-

External links

• Jesus Christ Superstar Lyrics