Edwin Astley

Infobox Person
name = Edwin "Ted" Astley
birth_date = birth date|1922|4|12|df=y
birth_place = Warrington, Cheshire UK
dead=dead
death_date = death date and age|1998|5|19|1922|4|12|df=y
death_place = Goring, Oxfordshire UK

Edwin Astley (1922—1998) was a British composer, occasionally credited as Ted Astley. His best known works are British television themes and scores, most notably the theme to "The Saint". He also successfully diversified into symphonic pop and an arrangement of his "Saint" theme reached number five in the UK Singles Chart.

Personal life and family

Astley was born in Warrington, Lancashire, and served in the Second World War as a musician playing saxophone and clarinet for the troops.cite web |title =Edwin T. Astley, biography |author =Eder, Bruce |publisher =allmovie.com |url=http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=2:158142~T1 |accessdate=2008-04-15]

Astley married Hazel Balbirnie in 1945.cite web |title =Edwin Astley Biography |publisher =IMDB |url=http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005951/bio |accessdate=2008-04-15] Their eldest daughter married Pete Townshend of The Who,cite web |title =Edwin Astley Biography |publisher =BFI |url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/771888/ |accessdate=2008-04-15] and their son Jon Astley produced and remastered The Who's reissues. Daughter Virginia Astley is a singer-songwriter.cite web |title =News, 24th November 2001 |author=Virginia Astley |publisher =virginiaastley.com |url=http://www.virginiaastley.com/html/news_01.htm |accessdate=2008-04-15]

Career

In the early 1950s Astley was arranging for Geraldo, and his song "I Never Could Tell" was recorded by both Vera Lynn and Richard Tauber. His own band, the Ted Astley Orchestra, became well known in the north of England, and he wrote songs for performers such as Anne Shelton.

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", "Gideon's Way", "The Baron" and "The Champions". Most of these programmes were part of Lew Grade's showbiz empire of ATV and ITC Entertainment. Astley was asked to write music for "The Prisoner", seen as a sequel of sorts to "Danger Man", 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. [cite web |title=Edwin Astley — the one that got away |author= Hall, Larry and Volkman, Victor R. |publisher=The Prisoner Music Archive |url=http://www.the-prisoner-6.freeserve.co.uk/arch_1.htm |accessdate=2008-05-18]

However, 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).

In 1997 Astley found himself at number five on the pop charts as composer of "The Saint", thirty-three years after he wrote it, which had been revived by Orbital for the new Saint movie. His last work was a 1998 symphonic interpretation of Who music called "", which followed 1995's "Symphonic Music Of The Rolling Stones".cite web |title =Mystery TV Themes:The Saint |author =Chris Well |url=http://chriswellnovelist.blogspot.com/2008/03/mystery-tv-themes-saint.html |accessdate=2008-04-21]

Recordings

Astley's actual recorded output is quite sparse, a few singles and albums of the music from "The Saint" and "Danger Man" which 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. Others 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.cite web |title =Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) Original Soundtrack |publisher =Network DVD |url=http://www.networkdvd.net/product_info.php?cPath=69&products_id=583 |accessdate=2008-04-15]

Death and legacy

Astley retired in the late 1970s, and died in 1998.

Although Astley's themes had introduced a number of highly popular television shows, recognition of his death was limited to brief obituaries in the "Times" and the "Independent". However, tributes later appeared on television and in print.

In 2001 Jools Holland presented a TV tribute called "Astley's Way". Jools Holland had recorded the "Danger Man" theme earlier and he appeared with The Jools Holland Rhythm and Blues Orchestra to play "Theme from Danger Man", 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.

The Autumn 2005 edition of "ACTION TV" provided a 12 page feature on Astley, including an interview, photos, a discography and a filmography.

References

External links

* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005951/ Edwin Astley] at the Internet Movie Database
* [http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/771888/index.html Edwin Astley biography at BFI Screenonline]
* [http://youtube.com/watch?v=qEl1Sr9pGH4 Pete Townshend on Edwin Astley's TV Themes, from YouTube]