The Myspace Fansite!
The War of the Worlds starred Richard Burton as the narrator-protagonist, Justin Hayward (of The Moody Blues), and David Essex.
"Forever Autumn", "Thunder Child", and "The Spirit of Man" were some of the individual songs. "Forever Autumn" also became a separate radio hit for a time. Most of the lyrics to the songs were written by former Elton John lyricist Gary Osborne.
The repetition of "Ulla!", the cry made by the Martians, and certain musical refrains throughout the musical pull the musical into a tight coherent whole.
The official album comes with several paintings by Peter Goodfellow , Geoff Taylor and Michael Trim that help to illustrate the story from beginning to end.
Two separate Spanish versions of the album were released in 1978, one featuring Anthony Quinn in the role of the journalist.
A special German version was also released in 1980 with Curd Jürgens taking the part of the journalist.
When the album was issued on CD, an abridged version with the unwieldy title Highlights from Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds was also released.
The 1998 computer game based on The War of the Worlds (the original book) not only featured remixed music from the album and Martian war machines based on the illustrations throughout the album booklet, but was actually called Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds.
In 2000, a collection of remixes of tracks from the original album - including several used in the computer game - was released as a double CD titled The War of the Worlds: ULLAdubULLA The Remix Album. While most of the contributors are relatively unknown, the album includes two versions of a remix of "Dead London" by Apollo Four Forty.
On 23 June 2005 the album was re-released in two forms: one in the original 2-disc CD set; another in a 7-disc "Collector's Edition" featuring many bonuses such as various remixes, outtakes, and the actors reading from the unabridged script as well as the seventh disc being a DVD showing the making of the album.
Whilst the original ULLAdubULLA album had a very limited run and has since gone out of print, following the huge success of the 2005 re-release of the original album, ULLAdubULLA II was released on 17 April 2006. This single CD release was largely made of tracks from the original remix album, with some additional new remixes.
In addition, it was announced in late 2004 that production had been commissioned for an animated CGI film version set for a 2007 release. Test footage of some of the Martian machines has been released to War of the Worlds Online
.
A live tour occurred in the UK and Ireland in April 2006, consisting of a live performance of the album. A 'virtual' Richard Burton performed as the Journalist, and Justin Hayward recreated his vocal performances from "Forever Autumn" and "The Eve of the War". Other artists who appeared include Russell Watson as Parson Nathaniel and Chris Thompson who sang "Thunder Child" as "The Voice Of Humanity" on the original album. A full sized Fighting Machine featured centre-stage. Also presented was a short animated 'prequel' to the story in the style of the upcoming feature-length film detailing the Martians' ecological destruction of their own world and their preparations to invade Earth, and including a short remix of "The Red Weed".
UPDATE! Additional dates have been added to the 2007 live tour of Jeff Waynes musical version of The War of the Worlds. The newly added dates will be in Bournmouth at the BIC Tuesday 18th December and in Brighton at the Brighton Center on Thursday 20th December.Order tickets at the official site here!
NOTE: This Myspace page is in no way associated, connected, sponsered or confirmed by Jeff Wayne, Sony BMG, or any copyrighted owners dealing with Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds.
