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Edwin Astley

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Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox person Edwin Thomas "Ted" Astley (12 April 1922 – 19 May 1998) was a British composer. His best known works are British television themes and scores, most notably the main themes for The Saint, Danger Man and The Baron. He also successfully diversified into symphonic pop and the arrangement of his theme to The Saint, as re-recorded by Orbital, reached number three in the UK singles chart.

Early lifeEdit

Astley was born in Warrington, Lancashire, to Lawrence Astley and Mary Alice Pester. He served in the Second World War as a musician in the Royal Army Service Corps band playing saxophone and clarinet for the troops.<ref name="allmovie">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

CareerEdit

In the early 1950s, Astley was arranging for Geraldo. His song "I Could Never Tell" was written by Edwin and Billy Bowen as an entry into a song writing contest when they were both serving in the army. Edwin won the prize of £250 and later used this money to pay for his wedding to Hazel Balbirnie. "I Could Never Tell" was later recorded by both Vera Lynn and Richard Tauber.<ref name="virginia" />

His own band, the Ted Astley Orchestra, became well known in the north of England,<ref name="virginia"/> and he wrote songs for performers such as Anne Shelton.<ref name="bfi"/><ref name="virginia"/>

He wrote music for many British television series of the 1950s and 1960s, including incidental music for The Champions, and the opening titles to The Adventures of Robin Hood (with the exception for the closing titles), Danger Man<ref name="danger-man.co.uk/Publicity_Music">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> (known as Secret Agent in North America, where a new graphic opening credit sequence was added which featured the song "Secret Agent Man" by P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri and was followed by the original English credits accompanied by Astley's High Wire theme),<ref name="bfi"/> Department S, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), The Saint, Gideon's Way and The Baron. All of these programmes were ITC Entertainment productions.<ref name="bfi"/>

Astley also wrote the orchestral and "opera" score for the Hammer Films version of The Phantom of the Opera (1962).

Astley wrote two arrangements of his own theme for The Saint, a slow version used in the black and white episodes and a more up-tempo arrangement of the same theme for the colour episodes. He then wrote a second theme, used in the second season of the colour episodes, based around Leslie Charteris' own theme music, which had previously been used in films and on radio. Charteris' theme would also open its main theme to Return of the Saint and would close its theme for its TV movies of The Saint which starred Simon Dutton (neither of which were composed by Astley); however, Astley's original Saint theme was chosen for the film of the same name.

Astley also wrote two themes for Danger Man – one for the 30-minute series transmitted from 1960 to 1962 entitled "The Danger Man Theme", and a new theme for the 60 minute series (1964–68) entitled "High Wire". Astley was asked to write music for The Prisoner, but had to withdraw because he felt that he would be unable to create Patrick McGoohan's vision for the score – due to McGoohan being too busy to hold meetings with him.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

However, Astley showed his diversity by writing the music for Sir Kenneth Clark's BBC documentary series Civilisation (1969),<ref name="bfi"/> and scoring several British Transport Films including Diesel Train Ride (1959), Broad Waterways (1959/60) and The Signal Engineers (1962).

In 1997, Astley found himself at number three on the UK singles chart as composer of "The Saint",<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 33 years after he wrote it, which had been revived by Orbital for the new Saint movie.<ref name="bfi"/> His last work was a 1998 symphonic interpretation of Who music called Who's Serious: The Symphonic Music of the Who, which followed 1995's Symphonic Music of the Rolling Stones.<ref name="chriswell">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

RecordingsEdit

Astley's actual recorded output is quite sparse, consisting of a few singles and albums of the music from The Saint and Danger Man. These were only available in the United States until 1997 when he arranged for CDs to be issued in the UK, where the albums were expensive collectors' items. Other recordings included the soundtrack for International Detective, a few library records which were only semi-official and a series of albums made by the London Symphony Orchestra which featured his work.

Recently the complete recordings of the score to Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) was released by Network DVD in the UK. The three disc box-set featured over two hundred recorded music cues from the series, and a book detailing the music production.<ref name="network">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1977, Astley wrote the orchestral score for Street in the City, a song recorded for the Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane album Rough Mix.<ref>https://petetownshend.net/musicals/rough-mix</ref>

Personal lifeEdit

Astley married Hazel Balbirnie in 1945, and had five children.<ref name="danger-man.co.uk/Publicity_Music"/> Their eldest daughter, Karen, married Pete Townshend.<ref name="bfi">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Their son, Jon Astley, produced and remastered The Who's reissues. Daughter Virginia Astley is a singer-songwriter.<ref name="virginia">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His other children are Virginia's twin Alison, and son Gareth.

Astley retired in the late 1970s, and died in 1998.<ref name="bfi"/> Recognition of his death was limited to brief obituaries in The Times and The Independent.<ref name="indeObit">Template:Cite news</ref> However, tributes later appeared on television and in print.

LegacyEdit

In 2001, Jools Holland presented a television tribute called Astley's Way.<ref name="Vyner-Holland/Barefaced-Lies">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="BFI/4ce2b875558ca">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Holland had recorded the Danger Man theme earlier, and he appeared with Jools Holland's Rhythm and Blues Orchestra to play "High Wire", plus various other themes and incidental music composed by Astley. The documentary also included interviews with his widow, son Jon, daughter Virginia and son-in-law Pete Townshend.<ref name="virginia"/>

Selected filmographyEdit

TelevisionEdit

ReferencesEdit

Template:Reflist

External linksEdit

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