Highlights from Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds Highlights from Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds Highlights from Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds is a 1981 compilation album by Jeff Wayne, highlights of the 1978 concept album, retelling the story of "The War of the Worlds" by H. G. Wells. It was released by Columbia Records. In order to cater to casual consumers who liked the music of "Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds" but did not want to sit through all the dialogue, Columbia Records issued a single-disc abridged version. It focused on the
The War of the Worlds (radio drama) because "The Mercury Theatre on the Air", an unsponsored CBS cultural program with a relatively small audience, ran at the same time as the NBC Red Network's popular "Chase and Sanborn Hour" featuring ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. At the time, many Americans assumed that a significant number of "Chase and Sanborn" listeners changed stations when the first comic sketch ended and a musical number by Nelson Eddy began and then tuned in "The War of the Worlds" after the opening announcements, but historian A. Brad Schwartz, after studying hundreds of letters from people who heard "The War of the Worlds", as