JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR

Jesus Christ Superstar: A Resurrection, is a 25 song double album featuring a whole host of characters from the Atlanta music scene including: Indigo Girls (Ray as Jesus and Emily as Mary Magdalene), Big Fish Ensemble (Lorant as Judas), 5-8, Opal Foxx Quartet (Benjamin Smoke as Caiaphas), Kelly Hogan (Simon Zealots), Gerard McHugh (Pontius Pilate), and The Feed and Seed Marching Band. It was recorded and produced by Michael Lorant and Rob Gal, and released in 1995 on Daemon. All of the proceeds have continued to fund gun violence education projects. To celebrate the release of the CD, the cast performed the rock opera in it’s own ragtag way in Atlanta. That same year, they took the show on the road to SXSW in Austin and Summer Nights at the Pier in Seattle.

The JCS project was originally conceived in the vivid imagination of Atlanta band, Big fish Ensemble’s Michael Lorant. What started as an idle conversation eventually snowballed into a full–blown and rather elaborate recording project. Michael comments, “I’m still not quite sure how a nice Jewish boy from Boston ever became so involved with a rock opera about Jesus Christ…JCS was something from my past, something nostalgic that I would pick up and listen to every so often.” Then several years ago during an Indigo Girls / Big Fish Ensemble tour something happened. While listening to the original JCS soundtrack during a long road trip between tour dates, Michael was struck with “the completely outrageous idea of recording an Atlanta version and began casting the album right then and there. It was basically a joke and seemed completely out of reach considering our resources.” Then a while later, the joke metamorphosed into reality when Indigo Girl Amy Ray (who sings the role of Jesus on the album) expressed interest in recording the project for release on her label. Amy comments,” The politics and history of Jesus’ story became even more profound when seen through the eyes of Judas. Michael Lorant did a brilliant job of directing the arrangements, organization, and production of this album.