|
|
|
|
|
Ted AstleyTed Astley (1922-1998) was a British composer often known by his full name Edwin Astley. He wrote music for many British television series of the 50s and 60s, including The Adventures of Robin Hood, Danger Man (known as Secret Agent in the USA, where his theme music was removed), Department S, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), The Saint, The Baron and The Champions. Most of these programmes were part of Lew Grade's showbiz empire of ATV and ITC. However, Ted Astley showed his diversity by writing the music for Sir Kenneth Clark's celebrated 1969 BBC documentary series Civilisation, and scoring several British Transport Films including Diesel Train Ride (1959), Broad Waterways (1959/60) and The Signal Engineers (1962). One of his daughters, Karen, married Pete Townsend (for whom Ted Astley scored several pieces of music), and another of his daughters, Virginia, became a recording artist herself mainly in the English pastoral vein, enjoying a cult following largely on the basis of her 1983 album From Gardens Where We Feel Secure. Ted Astley was more famously known as Edwin Astley and his first music was a song for Vera Lynn recorded in 1945.In the early 50s he was arranging for Geraldo.Anne Shelton and Vera Lynn and began composing music for films and TV more or less into the late 60s. His actuall recorded output is quite sparse,a few singles and a couple of albums of the music from "The Saint" and "Danger Man" which were only available in the States until 1997 when he arranged for CDs to be issued here. The albums were pretty expensive collectors items. Others included the soundtrack for "International Detective",a few Library records which were only semi official and his involvement with albums made by the LSO By 1978 Ted Astley had begun to do some arrangements for Pete Townshend his son in law,and one of his sons Jon had set himself up as the Official Who Archaeologist,remastering all the original albums.With the Scoop series of Pete's demos more Edwin Astley music was made available Pete's daughter Emma also has a short lived recording career at this time. In 1997 Ted found himself high on the pop charts as comoser of "The Saint" which had been revived by Orbital for the new Saint movie.Unfortunately he passed away a year later after years of illness.His last work was for a Symphonic interpreatation of Who music,which followed 1995's Symphonic Music Of The Rolling Stones,a project which has no less than SIX Astleys involved. Possibly the most bizzarre occurrence re Ted Astley's death is a total lack of tributes by the music media.There were obits in both the "Times" and the "Independent" and that was it. There seems to be no reissue program of any sort at the moment Astley, Ted Astley, Ted
|
 |
|
| Copyright 2005-2009 OnPedia.com. All Rights Reserved |
|
|