Press: 1980 Joseph

Here's the article from the Tuggerah Lakes Advocate published in advance of the opening of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.  Notice how (minor) errors of fact, which still plague the paper today, were evident in this article.  For instance they reported fact that the band Traction is "made-up of students from the school".  In reality only one member of Traction came from GHS, and that was the bass-player Chris Coble (vale), the others came from The Entrance High.

It's also unclear exactly which special prologue to the "play" (sic.) Mr Hibbard "wrote".  The paper refers to Joseph as "the father of Israel", whereas in my bible he actually IS called Israel (although I suppose you could make a case for this based on the definition of "father").  The paper also says "if you want to know how the story ends, you'll have to go and see the 'play'", where of course referring to numerous copies of the Bible that would be available is also another method.  Oh, and they spell "Potiphor" incorrectly, but we can perhaps forgive them for THAT!

Don't forget - to get a larger image of the picture you can click on the image.  To download it, right-click on the image and choose "Save TARGET As..." (NOT "Save Picture As").  To get an even larger image on-screen, right-click on it and choose "Open in New Window or Tab".  When the image opens in a new window or tab it will be scaled to fit into the window, however you can click on it, it will appear full size and you can scroll around in it for the absolute best visibility.

Video: Jacob and Sons (1980)

The Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat video is in better condition picture-wise than Dracula, but there is one small problem.  It has NO audio.  At the start you can hear Neil Aubrey flicking about two dozen bars of chords, really quietly and with a bit of a buzz over the top, but no picture underneath.  There's then a flicker, the picture pops up, and the audio drops out, and is gone completely for the rest of the show!

There is, however, a cassette tape of the soundtrack for the final night, which will contain the entire show apart from probably 20-30 seconds when the 45-minute side ran out, and it had to be flipped over and the recording re-started.

It is possible to re-join the soundtrack with the pictures.  The problem is the cassette and video don't play at precisely the same speed, so a song on video might be 3:00, and the song on tape might be 3:02.  This pushes the lip-synch out by an annoying amount; however most of the pictures are from way back in the hall and you can't see the lips too well as it is.  I can also make slight adjustments with the software I've got.  I will have to cut the video up into small segments (eg a song) and add audio under each one, and I can tell you it IS tedious and very time-consuming.

However, the result isn't too bad, and here is the first song Jacob and Sons which sounds bloody fantastic.  With Neil on accoustic guitar and Kay Bridge (nee Doessel) and her beautiful almost pitch-perfect voice, this comes over as a pleasure to listen to.  Here's the song.  Just a reminder, the pictures don't start until just over a minute into the show (where the audio disappeared).

Remember: the videos probably look better in full-screen mode, click the [ ]-looking icon in the bottom right corner

Way way back many centuries ago,
Not long after the Bible began
Jacob lived in the land of Canaan,
A fine example of a family man.

Jacob, Jacob and sons,
Depended on farming to earn their keep.
Jacob, Jacob and sons,
Spent all of his days in the fields with sheep.

Jacob was the founder of a whole new nation
Thanks to the number of children he had
He was also known as Israel, but most of the time
His sons and his wives used to call him Dad.

Jacob, Jacob and sons,
Men of the soil, of the sheaf and crook
Jacob, Jacob and sons,
A remarkable family in anyone's book.

Reuben was the eldest of the children of Israel
With Simeon and Levi the next in line
Naphtali and Isaachar with Asher and Dan
Zebulun and Gad took the total to nine

Jacob, Jacob and sons,
Benjamin and Judah, which leaves only one
Jacob, Jacob and sons,
Joseph - Jacob's favourite son

Jacob, Jacob and sons
Jacob, Jacob and sons
Jacob, Jacob and sons
Jacob Jacob Jacob
Jacob and Sons ...

1980 Joseph Soundtrack

I'm experimenting here, and trying to make the Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat soundtrack publicly available.

It has been converted into individual Mp3 tracks (as listed below) much like the stuff you'd add to an iPod.  To keep the file sizes down, the Mp3s I'm releasing are only sampled at a 64,000 Hz bitrate.  (Personally, I reckon that's more than sufficient, as the human ear can only hear 20,000 Hz maximum, but many puritans release their Mp3s at 320,000 Hz these days.  Overkill, and much larger file sizes IMHO).

Anyway, let's get down to tin tacks.  The files have all been uploaded to a free fileserver called "FileDropper" http://www.filedropper.com/.  You can click the links on this page, you'll be taken to the Filedropper host page, which will open in a new window.  Make sure you scroll down and click the "Download this File" icon (and none of the other click-bait that they put up). 

After you type in the Captcha characters it should then send you the Mp3 file.  You can either Open it or Save it.  Choose Open if you only want to deal with the file once, and it should open into an Mp3 player and start playing for you.  If you want to keep it for future use, then select Save and choose a spot on your hard drive to save it to. (It might pay to make a directory for the Joseph soundtrack as there are 22 files).

Rinse and repeat as necessary, trying to keep track of which file you're up to if you're getting the whole thing!  Sorry about all the ads from the fileserver, but it is a free service, and that's obviously how they pay for it.  I might revise this all one day as it does seem a bit cumbersome, but for now, please persist.  If you only want one or two files, it's not a problem.

1. Jacob and Sons                   2. Joseph's Coat
                         



3. Joseph's Dreams                  4. Poor, Poor Joseph
                                           



5. One More Angel in Heaven         6. Potiphar
                                            



7. Close Every Door                 8. Go, Go, Go, Joseph
                          



9. Pharaoh's Story                 10. Poor, Poor Pharaoh/Song of the King
                          



11. Pharaoh's Dreams Explained     12.Stone the Crows
                         



13. Those Canaan Days        14. The Brothers Come to Egypt/Grovel, Grovel
                         



15. Who's the Thief                16. Benjamin Calypso
                         



17. Joseph all the Time            18. Jacob in Egypt
                          



19 Any Dream Will Do               20. Any Dream Will Do (1st Encore)
                         



21. Song of the King (2nd Encore)  22. Speeches and Thanks (14 minutes)   
                         



23. Full Joseph Libretto (text form)

1980 Joseph Picasa Photo Album

I've come across a selection of quite a few photos from the Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat production in 1980.  There are simply too many to be able to post on the blog directly. So let's try a Picasa Web Album.  This will give you a lot more control over the viewing.

Click on the image below to visit Picassa.  Have fun, and we'll see you back on the blog a bit later on...