Jeff Wayne
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jeffrey "Jeff" Wayne is a musician mostly known for his musical version of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. He also wrote several advertising jingles in the 1970s which appeared on television in the United Kingdom, notably the Gordon's Gin commercial, which was systematically covered and re-covered by the Human League. Other well-known themes he wrote include Good Morning Britain (TV-am) and LBC radio.
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[edit] Youth
Jeff Wayne was born 1 july in Forest Hills, Queens. His father, Jerry Wayne, was an actor, singer and theatre producer who had a profound influence on Jeff's life in many ways, inspiring his love of music and of tennis, and introducing him to H. G. Wells' book The War of the Worlds. Wayne took classical, and later, jazz piano lessons from the age of five and was taught tennis by his father. He spent four years of his childhood in the UK after his father won the role of romantic gambler Sky Masterson in the original West End musical production of Guys and Dolls.
Four years later they returned to New York. Wayne graduated from Stephen Halsey Jr. High and then attended Forest Hills High School for one year (including playing for its tennis team), before moving to California. He graduated from Grant High School, then from Los Angeles Valley College with a journalism degree. He also captained and played Number 1 for their tennis teams, and played keyboards in local bands and coached tennis to support himself through those years. After completing his journalism degree he switched to music, and played keyboards briefly with the Sandpipers.
[edit] Music career begins
In 1966, his father Jerry offered Jeff Wayne the opportunity to compose the score for his upcoming West End musical Two Cities based on Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities which ran at London's Palace Theatre. The musical was a great success, winning for Edward Woodward the Evening Standard Award for Best Male Performance in a Musical for 1968-69. Returning to the UK, Wayne's musical career truly began. He became a record producer and helped produce David Essex's album Rock On. Essex was later recruited by Wayne as a voice actor in The War of the Worlds, playing the part of The Artilleryman.
[edit] The War of the Worlds
In 1978, Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds was released and achieved international success, including worldwide hit singles "The Eve Of The War" and "Forever Autumn", with vocals performed by Justin Hayward in both. It has also won two Ivor Novello Awards along with The Best Recording in Science Fiction and Fantasy, (the judges included Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Alfred Hitchcock). The record was re-released in 1995 on audio CD with five tracks remastered and added onto the second disk that were mostly created without Wayne's input.
Wayne kept a fairly low profile in the decade after The War of the Worlds, but continued to be active in composing and producing. He produced the music for the movie McVicar, released in 1980; he composed the tune for the 'turkish delight' advertisement in 1981, the theme tune for Good Morning Britain in 1982 on TV-am, and composed additional music for the 1984 album Beyond the Planets, Kevin Peek and Rick Wakeman's progressive rock reworking of Holst's orchestral suite.
In 1992 Jeff Wayne released Spartacus, his first major release since The War of the Worlds. It had many of the ingredients for success: a stellar cast, including Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta Jones, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and Marillion's Fish; a libretto by Gary Osborne, who had produced most of the haunting lyrics of The War of the Worlds; and a story combining powerful themes of oppression, desperation, love and death. Despite its potential, however, the album was a disappointment both artistically and commercially, with none of the engaging musicality or novel orchestration of The War of the Worlds.
In 1998, Jeff Wayne was involved in producing Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds, a PC computer game including 45 minutes of music from his Musical Version of The War of the Worlds which was re-scored and remixed in a newer electronica style with techno beats.
In 2004, Jeff Wayne and Ollie Record Productions began work on an animated CGI film version of his Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, the first UK tour took place in 2006. There is a new UK tour taking place in December 2007.
In the summer of 2005 following over a year’s work remixing (stereo and surround sound), repackaging and remastering, The War of The Worlds was re-released in the UK and Internationally. The album became one of the big hits of the year occupying 10 consecutive weeks in the Top 10 of the UK Album charts. The new release pushed sales to 3 million double albums in the UK, and approaching 14 million world-wide. It is now in the upper ends of the all-time best selling list since charts began, as well as amongst the elite of the longest running albums in chart history approaching, as of this writing, 300 weeks.
His first television series, The Book Of Tennis Chronicles, began broadcasting worldwide in 2005 (distributed by Fox Sports) and parallels the lives and tribulations of the greatest tennis players, and events, set against the most dramatic and quirky moments in world history, starting in 1877 and up to present time. Wayne created and produced the 8 half-hours series as well as scoring its music. The series was Executive Produced by Damian Collier, Jeff Wayne's producing partner.
[edit] Tennis
Tennis has remained an active part of Wayne's life; he has won at club, county, and national levels including, the British National Indoor Veterans singles and doubles titles, and the National Clay Court doubles. In 1992 he partnered his long time friend and former Great Britain #1 and Davis Cup captain Roger Taylor at the European Veteran Championships. 1999 also saw Wayne represent Great Britain competing for the Austria Cup in Spain, and achieved an ITF world ranking in his age group. In 2006 Wayne begin his 17th year as Hertfordshire County Men’s Captain (winners of this years National County Week title) and was elected into the International Lawn Tennis Club of Great Britain. Wayne has also played many pro-am tournaments including for: Muscular Dystrophy, Olympic Games Fund Raising, and Save the Children.
[edit] Family
Jeff and Geraldine live in Hertfordshire, England and have four children: Anna-Marie Wayne - an actress now based in California [1], Jemma Wayne - an author with her debut book Bare Necessities launched September, 2005, sons Zeb Wayne, DJ’ing on the London club scene as well as composing and producing music, and, Joab Wayne at school and training to become a professional tennis player.
[edit] Current activity
In April 2006 Wayne began a 14 date sold out concert tour of the UK that takes in the Royal Albert Hall and the newly refurbished Wembley Arena, which he produced alongside Damian Collier. Wayne conducts the Black Smoke Band and the 48 piece ULLAdubULLA strings.
The show at Wembley Arena was filmed using 23 High Def cameras and was directed by David Mallett. Universal Pictures is releasing the DVD of the show on 6 November 2006.
Wayne and Collier will be bringing the Tour back to UK Arenas in December 2007, ending at London's Millennium Dome, now called the O2 Dome.
They are also currently booking the show worldwide.
[edit] Discography
- Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds (1978)
- Highlights from Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds (1981)
- Jeff Wayne's Musical Version Of Spartacus (1992)
