Eric recalls walking to school in Glasgow, he had to pass various cinemas which often had lurid Edgar Allan Poe film posters on display. He particularly remembers The Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven and The Fall of the House of Usher. Eric was far too young to see the movies, but was intrigued by this forbidden fruit and when later in the 60s, he attended some evening marketing classes, in attempting to describe the new marketing concept, the lecturer mentioned a marketing statistic, namely that no film made from Edgar Allan Poe's work had ever lost money. Eric was struck with the idea that if this were true, then perhaps an album inspired by his work might not lose money either and this was the genesis of Tales of Mystery and Imagination.

Eric has always been inspired by great creative minds, whether authors, architects or psychoanalysts. He regards Edgar Allan Poe as probably his greatest musical inspiration because not only were his works fascinating, his life was even more intriguing. Compared to Gaudi and Freud whose work enthralled Eric, but whose lives were mundane by comparison, he found Edgar Allan Poe doubly inspirational.

It seemed obvious that as part of the Fall of the House of Usher track, we would need the sound effect of thunder and lightning. When we were recording this particular piece, it was at the height of Summer in August in London and there was no probability of such weather conditions. The sound effects library had some fairly inadequate samples so we scoured the news- papers to see where weather conditions might be more promising. We were experimenting with a 'dummy-head' microphone which was supposed to give a highly realistic surround sound signal, even on a stereo recording and we were prepared to fly anywhere in the world with this large rubber head to record the desired effect. Nowhere in the world indicated thunder storms and just as we were about to give up hope, the skies over Abbey Road opened up in the most torrential storm any of us had ever experienced. Alan quickly fitted some long leads to the dummy head, stuck it on a microphone stand and took it through to the garden behind the studio and we waited for the next peal of thunder. The rain was belting down so hard, it bounced off the rubber head making such a noise that the thunder could not be properly heard. Improvising quickly, Eric and the bass guitarist, David Paton, rushed into the rain and held a sheet above the dummy head to keep the rain off. Standing under the sheet which they held above their heads, Eric and David waited for the next peel of thunder which duly came and the two of them exploded into laughter, again totally wrecking the recording. Eventually, however, by not looking at each other, they managed to stifle their amusement and a satisfactory sound effect was obtained and used on the recording.

The orchestras were recorded in the Kings Way Hall in London which had a marvelous acoustic, but was next to a London Underground Station which caused no end of problems. The orchestral recording was frequently interrupted. If you can hear a very low rumble on the Tales of Mystery and Imagination album, it could be an Edgar Allan Poe effect, or more likely a London tube train!

After the album was completed and manufactured, Orson Welles made a recording which was used as part of the initial presentation of the album in Los Angeles. Parts of this recording were later incorporated into the digital re-mixed CD version.