Alan Parsons (born 20 December 1948) is an English audio engineer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He was involved with the production of several significant albums, including the Beatles\' Abbey Road and Let It Be, and the art rock band Ambrosia\'s debut album Ambrosia as well as Pink Floyd\'s The Dark Side of the Moon for which Pink Floyd credit him as an important contributor. Parsons\' own group, the Alan Parsons Project, as well as his subsequent solo recordings, have also been successful commercially.\n', '

In October 1967, at the age of 18, Parsons went to work as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road Studios, where he earned his first credit on the LP Abbey Road. He became a regular there, engineering such projects as Wings\' Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway, five albums by the Hollies, and Pink Floyd\'s The Dark Side of the Moon, for which he received his first Grammy Award nomination. He was known for doing more than what would normally be considered the scope of a recording engineer\'s duties.[citation needed] He considered himself to be a recording director, likening his contribution to recordings to what Stanley Kubrick contributed to film.[citation needed] This is apparent in his work with Al Stewart\'s "Year of the Cat", where Parsons added the saxophone part and transformed the original folk concept into the jazz-influenced ballad that put Stewart onto the charts.[citation needed] It is also heard in Parsons\' influence on the Hollies\' "He Ain\'t Heavy, He\'s My Brother" and "The Air That I Breathe", sharp departures from their popular 1960s hits "Stay", "Just One Look", "Stop! Stop! Stop!" or "Bus Stop".[citation needed] Parsons was also known to have swapped shifts during the engineering of Dark Side of the Moon so he could work entirely on the project.[citation needed]\n', '

Parsons also produced three albums by Pilot, a Scottish pop rock band consisting of Ian Bairnson on guitar, Stuart Tosh on drums, and David Paton on lead vocals, guitars, bass and William (Billy) Lyall, on piano and keys. Their hits included "January" and "Magic".\n', '

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