Johnny Douglas
John 'Johnny' Douglas (19 June 1920 - 20 April 2003) was an
English composer, musical director and string arranger, perhaps best
known for his work in the easy listening genre. He recorded over 500
tracks for DECCA and over 80 albums for RCA and is probably best
remembered for the evocative, nostalgic score he wrote in 1970 for
Lionel Jeffries's screen adaptation of the Edith Nesbit classic, The
Railway Children. But the range of this enormously gifted musician
is indicated by the range of artists he worked with - among them
Shirley Bassey, June Bronhill, Max Bygraves, Vera Lynn, Frankie
Vaughan, Barbra Streisand, Harry Secombe, Kenneth McKellar, Frankie
Howerd, Al Martino, Mantovani, Ann Shelton and Billy Cotton.
Douglas was born in Hackney, London, England, on 19 June 1920, the
eldest of two sons of John and May Douglas. The family moved to
Bermondsey where his mother was a housewife and his father held a
secretarial position until he became Alderman of West Bermondsey
Council.
By the age of two, could pick out on the piano tunes
played by his uncle. He took formal piano lessons from the age of
four and, by 11, was studying scores and band parts while listening
to recordings. By learning about instruments and their
transpositions, he began to appreciate the finer points of
composition and orchestration.
As a scholarship boy at St
Olave's and St Saviour's grammar school, Bermondsey, he formed a
dance band, mainly of school friends, and developed it to such a
high standard that it regularly won awards. His first professional
job came in 1939, as pianist with the Neville Hughes Sextet. The
outbreak of the second world war took him into the RAF, where again
he formed a dance band. An arm injury put a stop to his
piano-playing for a couple of years, and by the time he was fit
again, arranging and composition work had become dominant.
In
the immediate post-war years, he was kept busy arranging for such
band-leaders as Bert Ambrose, Ted Heath, Edmundo Ros and Cyril
Stapleton. For Stapleton, he also continued as a pianist.
From 1948, Douglas took a staff job with a music publisher, in order
to be able to arrange for full orchestra, and, in 1952, he had his
first big hit with the backing for Tex Ritter's recording of High
Noon. In all, he provided the arrangements for around 500 titles on
the Decca label.
Already a seasoned radio broadcaster, in
1955 he was given a show with his own orchestra, In The Still Of The
Night. Swing Song was another favourite BBC radio series in the
1960s, and, in the 1970s, he was a regular conductor on such Radio 2
programmes as The Terry Wogan Show and Charlie Chester's Sunday
Soapbox. On television, he provided musical support to top
international stars.
In 1958, the grande dame of RCA, Ethel
Gabriel, asked Douglas to provide arrangements for the album Living
Strings Play Music Of The Sea, a project that gave him the
long-sought opportunity to work with a full-sized orchestra as both
arranger and conductor. RCA was delighted with the result, which
began a quarter-century collaboration that saw the creation of more
than 80 albums, one of which, Feelings, went gold.
Douglas
wrote the scores for some 36 pictures, starting in 1962 with The Day
Of The Triffids, which he co-composed with Ron Goodwin (obituary,
January 11 2003). Other notablecredits were Circus Of Fear (1966)
and Run Like A Thief (1967); the score of The Railway Children was
nominated for a Bafta award. The television films and series he
provided music for included The Incredible Hulk (1982), Dungeons And
Dragons (1983), The Transformers (1984) and GI Joe (1990).
Douglas established his own easy-listening record label in 1983,
taking its name, Dulcima, from a 1971 film adaptation of an HE Bates
story, for which he had written the score. The freedom this new
venture gave him to choose his own material, and have full control
over its production, enabled him, in 1999, to commit to disc two
symphonic poems, The Conquest and The Aftermath. Both were recorded
by an orchestra largely made up of his numerous friends and
colleagues.
Sadly, Douglas's creative energies outran his
physical health, but those who knew him will remember the
kindly-looking, bespectacled man who succeeded in combining bonhomie
and authority in the course of a 60-year musical career.
He
is survived by his wife Marion and daughters Norma and Martine; his
son Martin predeceased him.
Douglas's biography has been written by
his daughter, Norma Camby.
Any contributions will be
gratefully accepted
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