Biography
Before achieving enormous success as a co-writer of stage musicals with Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice worked as an A&R executive at EMI and oversaw production for the late-1960s British rock band Tales of Justine. The group’s lone 7-inch release, the 1967 coupling “Albert”/“Monday Morning,” sat at the more saccharine extreme of British psychedelic pop. Far more indicative of their overall sound, though still marked by a delicate sensibility, were the numerous unreleased recordings they cut between August 1967 and January 1969. Those tracks echoed the expansive, occasionally grandiose studio experiments the Hollies pursued during their own psychedelic period, yet Tales of Justine applied an even more ornate touch. Singer-songwriter and band member David Daltrey appeared in the original production of the early Rice-Webber musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; he subsequently launched the group Carillion, which served as a support act on a tour mounted during David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust era. In 1997 the single and the surviving 1967–1969 recordings were assembled on the limited-edition Tenth Planet LP Petals from a Sunflower, pressed in an edition of 1,000 copies.
Albums