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Composer:
HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU - BBC21s most successful series, ever,
allegedly!
+ + + + + Musical Director:
JAMESON TONIGHT - Sky (350+ hour long live shows from Soho1s Windmill
Theatre) + + + + + Musicologist:
BBC Musicologist + + + + + HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU It was while working on a childrens series for Hat Trick, doing songs and film parodies with puppets and animation, they commissioned me to compose a theme tune for a forthcoming, light weight, political comedy quiz they were making for the BBC. The day before I was due to record the piece, all hell broke loose. The original presenter left the show and everything, the set, the lighting design, and the theme tune had to be changed. I composed the new theme that evening and scored the parts on the train journey to the studio. Recorded in one take by Stubby on Drums, Tod on Sax, Sid on Trumpet, Disley on piano and Donnelly on guitar, with me on bass. If you get the best players in town into a recording studio and ask them nicely to play the music as written, it will always sound fantastic on TV. There1s a new improved version on the BBC 75th Anniversary CD.
You're driven in a limo to and from BBC Television Centre. The car has a mini bar, a fax machine, TV, the lot. On route you get, in my case, four calls from the producer asking your view on tonight's subject (mine was: Is Pop Music Dead?) and what do I think of my opponent's view point. Basically they want you to have a massive row with the other guest. At the studio you wait with a couple of politicians, someone from the clergy and various TV people, everyone of them getting absolutely plastered. Everyone except that is, Kirsty Wark who is the best presenter I've ever seen in action. Although we never did get to the bottom of pop music's mortality. My appearance fee is £30, my driver charged the BBC £260 for the round trip.
Bandleader for a 14 month straight run of a five nights a week chat show from the Windmill Theatre, hosted by Derek Jameson. 350 hours of live entertainment with over 2,000 guests. Every show had at least one musical guest (Nigel Kennedy, Barry Manilow, Captain Sensible, Richard Clayderman, New Kids On The Block, to name just five), at least half a dozen guest walk ons, specialty acts needing backing and every comic turn on the British circuit plus dozens of Americans. Produced by Michael Hurll and overseen personally by Rupert Murdoch.
A series written and presented by Joseph Heller (Catch 22) about the long time dead artist Rembrandt. He's the bloke who painted voluptuous naked ladies laying about doing nothing much at all and old geezers either looking miserable or holding up pieces of paper. The music had to be authentic to the period, although one of the producers said, with great authority, how Rembrandt listened to the solo pianoforte whilst working. It was tough mentioning the piano wasn't invented for over a hundred years after Rembrandt had popped his clogs. Oh how we laughed!
On air at 7pm Saturday and finished at 10pm on Sunday, my job as Musical Director was to back any guests that turned up, play appropriate music to whatever feature was next, commercial stings and the totaliser (over £60 million). A typical hour would involve playing the sting in & out of the break eight times, a Foxtrot for the Croydon OAP Ballroom Dancers, the theme from the Dam Busters for people dressed as World War One pilots with wheel barrows full of toy frogs; Kung Fu Fighting for an under seven's karate team to chop balsa wood, plus some tough guy music while the world record for the most press ups in a 24 hour period was broken. This wasn't the only world record music was provided for, but it was the only one where the participant used the band room to do the majority of his 44,000 press ups, not a pleasant aroma! On a Telethon you're on camera for 27 hours non stop, but you are allowed a 10 minute break every hour. Over the two broadcasts, presented by Frank Bough and Judith Chalmers, I got slapped on the wrist twice, for the walk on music: Claire Rayner: "You Are The Wind Beneath My Wings" and Waynes Sleep: "Dancing Queen".
Some of the artists I have worked with:-
LYLE LOVETT
SLIM GAILLARD
A UNION CARD CARRYING PROFESSIONAL SINGING PIG!
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