Andrew Lloyd Webber - Biography
By J Poet
Andrew Lloyd Webber is the most successful composer of musicals in the rock era. With productions like Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Evita, and The Phantom of the Opera, Webber reinvented the musical theater for the rock generation.
Andrew Lloyd Webber was born into a musical family in South Kensington, London. His father William Lloyd Webber was an organist and professor of theory and composition at the Royal College of Music; his mother, Jean Johnstone, was a singer, pianist, and violinist at the Royal College. His younger brother Julian Lloyd Webber is a famous classical cellist. Starting at age three, Webber learned to play piano and violin at home. He began composing when he was six and had his first music, a six-piece suite, published when he was nine. With Julian and his aunt Viola, he produced living room theatrical pieces based on the plays his aunt had taken him to see in the West End, London’s theater district.
Lloyd Webber studied music at Westminster School, where his father was the organist. In 1964, just 16, he was at Oxford as a Queens Scholar in history. He kept composing music and asked friends if they knew any one who wrote good lyrics. Tim Rice sent Lloyd Webber a letter in 1965, claiming to be a ‘young, with it” writer. They met and began collaborating; Lloyd Webber dropped out of Oxford. Their first play was The Likes of Us, in 1965. It was going to be staged at a student theater in Oxford, but they decided against it. They continued writing pop songs together, some of which were recorded, but Lloyd Webber most wanted to write musical plays.
Alan Doggett was head of the music department at Colet Court, a small preparatory school. Doggett was a friend of Webber’s and asked if he could write a short religious musical for an end term concert. Lloyd Webber and Rice gave him a 15-minute rock operetta called Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It was a success with parents and children and The slowly added more songs to the production; another early staging earned a favorable review in the Times of London.
The duo signed with London’s Decca label and wrote the first version of Jesus Christ Superstar (1970 Decca) as a starring vehicle for singer heavy metal singer Ian Gillan of Deep Purple. Gillian wanted to change his image and singing the role of Jesus Christ fit the bill. The double album got rave reviews and after a successful Broadway production in New York in 1970 Jesus Christ Superstar made it to the West End in 1971. It was billed as a rock opera, but Webber’s music also drew on classical and avant-garde 20th Century music. In 1972, a revised and considerably longer version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1973 Decca) finally hit the West End and became the duo’s second hit.
Meanwhile, they were working on the Jeeves, based on the P. G. Wodehouse Jeeves and Wooster novels. Rice didn’t feel his lyrical style suited the material and left the lyrics to Alan Ayckbourn who provided the book as well. The play closed after three weeks. When it was finally staged in 1996 as By Jeeves (1996 Decca), only two of the original songs remained - “Half a Moment” and “Banjo Boy.”
Rice returned for Evita, staged in London in 1978 and on Broadway in 1979. The album of Evita (1978 MCA) featured Julie Covington as Eva Peron and her version of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" became an international hit. The show won a Best Musical and Best Original Score Tony and the cast album won a Best Original Cast Recording Grammy. Rice left again and Lloyd Webber wrote the classically themed piece Variations (1978 Philips) with his brother Julian, based on “Paganini’s 24th Caprice.” It hit #2 on the British pop chart and the main theme became the opening music for ITV1's South Bank Show.
Without a lyricist in tow, Lloyd Webber wrote music for the poems of T. S. Elliot’s Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, one of the favorite books of his childhood. CATS (1981 Polydor UK, 1982 Decca US) was an even bigger blockbuster. It ran in the West End for 21 years, and on Broadway for 18, setting a new record for longest running musical ever. The American cast took home a Best Original Cast Recording Grammy and Best Original Score and Best Musical Tonys. Webber’s next show, Starlight Express (1984 Decca), was more pop with disco and Country songs in the mix. Critics hated it, but it settled in for a long record-breaking run in the West End.
Lloyd Webber wrote a Requiem, which premiered in New York on 25 February 1985, at St. Thomas Church. The recoding of the piece Requiem with Placido Domingo, Sarah Brightman, and Lorin Maazel (1985 EMI) won a Grammy for Best Classical Composition. When released as a single, “Pie Jesu” topped the UK pop charts. The next year Lloyd Webber staged The Phantom of the Opera (1986 Polygram) with lyrics by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe. Its blend of rock, classical and light classical music gave it a universal demographic appeal. It won the Best Musical Tony and is still running on both Broadway and the West End, topping the record set by CATS.
Aspects of Love (1989 Decca) with lyrics by Don Black and Charles Hart was an intimate look at love and its discontents, focusing on various love triangles. The music was more traditionally pop and it closed after a mere three year run. Sunset Boulevard (1993 Decca) with lyrics by Christopher Hampton and Don Black took home Tonys for Best Musical, Best Book and Best Score. The cost of mounting the production, however, lost the production some 25 million dollars during its run. In 1992, using the pseudonym Dr. Spin, Webber released a version of the theme from the video game Tetris. “Tetris” made it to #6 on the British pop charts.
Whistle Down the Wind (1998 Decca) with lyrics by Bat Out of Hell legend Jim Steinman spawned “No Matter What,” a #1 hit for Boyzone, but never made it to Broadway although it had a three-year run in the West End. In 2000 Webber bought Stoll Moss, a company that owns 10 West End theaters.
The Woman In White (2005 Angel) closed after a few performances on Broadway and only lasted 19 months on the West End, undergoing several revisions along the way. The Beautiful Game (2002 Decca), with lyrics by Ben Elton, was a teenage Romeo and Juliet story set in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. It only lasted a year on the West End and hasn’t yet made it to Broadway. Webber produced Bombay Dreams (2002 Sony UK), a Bollywood style musical By A. R. Rahman, who went on to win an Oscar fro the music to Slumdog Millionaire, but didn’t write any tunes for it. He produced a London revival of The Sound of Music in 2006 and is currently working on his first opera, tentatively titled The Master and Margarita. In September 2006 Webber received a Kennedy Center Honors award.
