Streets: A Rock Opera (often simply shortened to Streets) is a concept album by Savatage, dealing with the rise and fall of the musician DT Jesus. It was originally released in October 1991 on Atlantic Records. The album took almost a year to record, with pre-production beginning in October 1990. It was also Jon Oliva's last album as lead vocalist until 1995's Dead Winter Dead and 1997's The Wake of Magellan, where he shared lead vocal duties with Zak Stevens (singing lead on two songs from each album). He resumed lead vocal duties exclusively on 2001's Poets and Madmen.
Streets: A Rock Opera (often simply shortened to Streets) is a concept album by Savatage, dealing with the rise and fall of the musician DT Jesus. It was originally released in October 1991 on Atlantic Records. The album took almost a year to record, with pre-production beginning in October 1990. It was also Jon Oliva's last album as lead vocalist until 1995's Dead Winter Dead and 1997's The Wake of Magellan, where he shared lead vocal duties with Zak Stevens (singing lead on two songs from each album). He resumed lead vocal duties exclusively on 2001's Poets and Madmen.
Streets: A Rock Opera (often simply shortened to Streets) is a concept album by Savatage, dealing with the rise and fall of the musician DT Jesus. It was originally released in October 1991 on Atlantic Records. The album took almost a year to record, with pre-production beginning in October 1990. It was also Jon Oliva's last album as lead vocalist until 1995's Dead Winter Dead and 1997's The Wake of Magellan, where he shared lead vocal duties with Zak Stevens (singing lead on two songs from each album). He resumed lead vocal duties exclusively on 2001's Poets and Madmen.
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STREETS: A ROCK OPERA
A SOMETHING OR OTHER ROLEPLAY
The story features a fallen rock star called DT Jesus (DT is short for either De-Tox or Down-Town), who has hit hard times. He is a drug dealer as the story begins. DT Jesus is just another lowlife on the streets of New York City. Streets explains the story behind DT Jesus and his rise to fame again and his second fall.
The concept of Streets is based on a book written by Paul O'Neill many years prior to his involvement with the band. Streets was never meant to be an autobiography. In fact, it was written in 1979 as a Broadway play and stored in a drawer at Paul O'Neill's home until Criss Oliva found it and suggested it be Savatage's next album. It is considered coincidental that the life of lead vocalist Jon Oliva mirrored that of the main character DT Jesus at the time. Songs like "Jesus Saves" and "Ghost in the Ruins" were "rocked up", said O'Neill, while many others, including "Believe", "Heal My Soul" (which is based on a traditional Welsh lullaby, "Suo Gân"), and "A Little Too Far", all appear in the same version intended for their Broadway performances. Other tracks like "Streets" and "Strange Reality" were written expressly for the rock opera. "Heal My Soul" was re-recorded by Savatage's off-shoot musical project, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, on a 2007 Wal-Mart CD sampler. "Believe" was re-recorded with Tim Hockenberry on vocals by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on their 2009 album Night Castle.
Savatage would have liked to call the record Gutter Ballet, as the original play written by O'Neill was called Gutter Ballet, but the inclusion of the song on their previous record meant this was not going to happen. Instead, the band wanted to call the album Ghost in the Ruins. O'Neill said that "Streets was OK too", but Jon Oliva disliked the fact that A Rock Opera was tagged onto the title. Oliva has said he has only introduced any performance of the album simply as "Streets". Eventually, an album entitled Ghost in the Ruins was released in 1995 as a tribute to Criss Oliva.
During their 2007 tour, Jon Oliva's new project, Jon Oliva's Pain performed some of the album, in album running order, as a special surprise to audiences. Oliva himself noted on stage that some of the songs performed had never been performed live to an audience before.
Savatage had thought about making a rock opera after their successful collaboration with producer Paul O'Neill in making Hall of the Mountain King. During the recording of its follow-up in 1989, guitarist Criss Oliva found a play and accompanying music written by Paul O'Neill, which the band intended to use on their album. Soon after, however, the band felt they were not ready yet, and postponed the idea for their next record. The record they were working on still received the name of the play, [[Gutter Ballet]], and one of the tracks from the play was also recorded for Gutter Ballet, namely "When the Crowds Are Gone". The band then decided that their next album would be based on the play, and the band entered the studio to record what would become Streets.
After the Gutter Ballet tour however, rhythm guitarist Chris Caffery left the band on friendly terms to rejoin his brother's band, where he could play lead guitar instead of rhythm guitar. He would later rejoin Savatage in 1995 for the recording of Dead Winter Dead and has remained a member ever since.
The album was originally due to be a double CD record, but record label Atlantic Records lost reels of the sessions in their vaults. These "lost tracks" were re-written over the years and eventually formed parts of songs on Edge of Thorns and later works. The album as a double CD as originally intended will never see the light, partly because the only recordings that remain are on audio cassette of the master tapes, and partly because most of the original ideas for the songs were used in later works. Originally the album would contain more spoken tracks than the one used for the introduction for Jesus Saves (which was a reworking of DT Jesus after Atlantic did not like the original version, and was recorded with only Jon and Criss in the studio, much like Gutter Ballet). However, a 31-track narrated version of the album was released by EarMusic Records on September 27 2013.
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Savatage had thought about making a rock opera after their successful collaboration with producer Paul O'Neill in making Hall of the Mountain King. During the recording of its follow-up in 1989, guitarist Criss Oliva found a play and accompanying music written by Paul O'Neill, which the band intended to use on their album. Soon after, however, the band felt they were not ready yet, and postponed the idea for their next record. The record they were working on still received the name of the play, [[Gutter Ballet]], and one of the tracks from the play was also recorded for Gutter Ballet, namely "When the Crowds Are Gone". The band then decided that their next album would be based on the play, and the band entered the studio to record what would become Streets.
After the Gutter Ballet tour however, rhythm guitarist Chris Caffery left the band on friendly terms to rejoin his brother's band, where he could play lead guitar instead of rhythm guitar. He would later rejoin Savatage in 1995 for the recording of Dead Winter Dead and has remained a member ever since.
The album was originally due to be a double CD record, but record label Atlantic Records lost reels of the sessions in their vaults. These "lost tracks" were re-written over the years and eventually formed parts of songs on Edge of Thorns and later works. The album as a double CD as originally intended will never see the light, partly because the only recordings that remain are on audio cassette of the master tapes, and partly because most of the original ideas for the songs were used in later works. Originally the album would contain more spoken tracks than the one used for the introduction for Jesus Saves (which was a reworking of DT Jesus after Atlantic did not like the original version, and was recorded with only Jon and Criss in the studio, much like Gutter Ballet). However, a 31-track narrated version of the album was released by EarMusic Records on September 27 2013.
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