I love Jesus Christ Superstar.
I'm not a Christian, but I was raised in that tradition, and my upbringing has left me with an appreciation for various pieces of the lore and their assorted reinterpretations throughout pop culture. That, plus a healthy admiration for musical theater, means that Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's rock opera turned feature film turned stage musical sensation is one hundred percent My Jam.
And if you're into Jesus Christ Superstar, and you meet someone else who's followed its evolution over the decades, you probably know that eventually the conversation turns to one question: Who's The Best Jesus?
It's a hard question to answer in any objective way because, well, Art, but it's also difficult because the role is so open to various interpretations. Some performers play Jesus's evolution from bringer of joy to grave sacrificial lamb more confidently than others, while some performers prefer to bring about his transformation not gradually, but as a complete, epic turn in the middle of the character's signature song, "Gethsemane." Then there are the vocal stylings. Some, like John Legend in a recent TV adaptation, lean more toward the baritone, while others take their Jesus into tenor territory, culminating in that dazzling falsetto cry of "Whyyyyyyyy?" right in the middle of Gethsemane. That falsetto wail has become synonymous with the show, and for most fans, it's essential to get it right.
So you see why this is an extremely complicated process and apart from personal preferences you couldn't possibly narrow it down to just one performer I'm just kidding the answer is Ian Gillan.
Yes, while Ted Neeley, who played the role onscreen and then toured with it onstage, is the actor most identified with role, and fellow performers Ben Forster, Aaron LaVigne (the first one I saw live), Glenn Carter (the first one I saw on TV), and many more have made it their own, the voice you hear on the original 1970 concept album which started it all remains the pinnacle of this interpretation. And if you don't believe me, just listen:
When he played Jesus for Webber and Rice, after they couldn't get funding for a stage show and just decided to make an album, Gillan was a rising star in the rock world. He'd just joined Deep Purple and was poised to become one of the most recognizable figures in the British heavy blues/proto-metal wave of bands rising out of the UK in the late 1960s and early 1970s. That meant he had the range to carry out the role, and it means that his screaming Whyyyyyy remains the best of any singer to take on the role.
But there's more to it than that. Gillan's vocal is a strange mix of gravitas and vulnerability. He plays Jesus as a man with a natural charisma, a hypnotic voice, someone who could have eased right into a ministry and still possesses those gifts. But the pain keeps creeping in, all around the edges of everything he intones in "Gethsemane," the song in which Jesus essentially begs God the Father for his life. It's a remarkably emotive performance even when you can't see him doing it live onstage, and yet it's also constantly dripping with rock star swagger. It's everything Jesus Christ Superstar needs, so it's no wonder that this concept album eventually took over the world.
Happy Easter, everyone.
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