- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- Jesus Christ Superstar is the first major musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice to be produced professionally on stage.
Jesus Christ Superstar / A Rock Opera (1970): Jesus Christ Superstar is the first major musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice to be produced professionally on stage. This is the original American Jesus Christ Superstar album, released in advance to raise money for a Broadway production that opened the following year. However, this album isn’t actually the first release: “Superstar”, with lead vocals by Murray Head, was issued as a single in late 1969 before the album Jesus Christ Superstar was even completed, much to the chagrin of MCA Records. (Murray Head later recorded the main single from another Tim Rice co-production, Chess, called “One Night in Bangkok”, which came out in 1975). I remember hearing “Superstar” in my freshman year in college when a friend in the dorm played it for me. I was used to only the most reverent language being used when talking about Jesus; but even considering that Judas Iscariot is the one singing, and despite the frequent protests about “don’t get me wrong”, the lyrics were startling to me. Another single from the album, “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” – sung by Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene (who is inaccurately portrayed in Jesus Christ Superstar as a prostitute) – was also a big hit. Ian Gillan, the lead singer of Deep Purple sang the part of Jesus on the album. In addition to Gillan, the presence of rock session musicians like guitarists Neil Hubbard and Chris Spedding, bassist Alan Spenner, and drummer Bruce Rowland gives the album more of a rock flavor than most of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s later works. After a few authorized and unauthorized stage performances elsewhere, Jesus Christ Superstar opened on Broadway in October 1971 to mixed reviews, with Jeff Fenholt as Jesus and Ben Vereen as Judas. The musical has since been revived many times and is regularly performed throughout the world. The Christian Church was slow in its acceptance of Jesus Christ Superstar – the album was originally banned by the BBC on grounds of its being “sacrilegious” – but it has become a popular Easter-time production in churches of all sizes. One issue early on is that Jesus Christ Superstar makes no reference to the Resurrection; but then again, neither does Godspell, and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004) barely does. In actuality, all three of these productions are written in the style of “Passion Plays” that traditionally end with the Crucifixion.