Laurie Johnson, who died in January 2024, was an English composer and bandleader who wrote scores for dozens of film and television series. He studied at the Royal College of Music, where his tutors included Herbery Howells and Ralph Vaughan Williams. He spent four years in the Coldstream Guards (playing French horn) before moving to the entertainment industry in the 1950s. Johnson began writing and recording for the KPM Music Library in 1960, holding orchestral sessions at the Friends House on Euston Road and at Denis Preston’s Lansdowne, where he was aided by engineer Adrian Kerridge. At the sessions Johnson produced two styles of music: light orchestral and big band jazz. He was also house conductor for KPM in the 1960s. Some of the library music pieces were also issued as commercial recordings – The New Big Sound of the Laurie Johnson Orchestra (1963) and The Big New Sound Strikes Again (1965) on Denis Preston’s Record Supervision label, and the Two Cities Suite (1966), which was licensed to Pye Records.
In 1961, Johnson entered the UK Singles Chart with “Sucu Sucu”, the theme music from the UK television series Top Secret. It was in this area of television scoring that he was to be most prolific, and in 1965 he left KPM to work directly for various television companies. From the 1960s to the 1980s he composed over fifty themes and scores, including the theme used on This is Your Life (entitled “Gala Performance”), The Avengers (from 1965), Animal Magic (entitled “Las Vegas”), Jason King and the Professionals. He was one of the founders, with Albert Fennell and Brian Clemens, of Mark One Productions, the television production company responsible for The New Avengers and The Professionals. Later in his career Johnson provided DVD commentaries on several of the series in which he was involved. For radio he provided the theme music to the BBC Radio 1 series Sounds of Jazz, introduced by Peter Clayton and broadcast on Sunday evenings from October 1973 onwards.
Johnson’s film scores included The Good Companions, The Moonraker (1958), Tiger Bay, Dr Strangelove, First Men in the Moon and Diagnosis: Murder (the 1975 Christopher Lee film). The 1970 television film Mister Jerico involved many of the original Avengers team, including Patrick Macnee.
For the theatre Johnson wrote the musical Lock Up Your Daughters, with Lionel Bart and Bernard Miles, which opened the new Mermaid Theatre in 1959. It was later revived at the Mermaid in 1962 and transferred to the West End in 1963. Johnson’s other stage work included music for the Peter Cook revue, Pieces of Eight (1959), and The Four Musketeers (1967), starring Harry Secombe.
In the 1990s, several of Johnson’s early recordings were re-issued on the Unicorn-Kanchana label. These included his own compositions The Royal Tour, The Wind in the Willows and Symphony: Synthesis for a large ensemble comprising a jazz orchestra and symphony orchestra. Originally released by EMI Records in 1969, Symphony featured several famous jazz names including Tubby Hayes, Don Lusher, Joe Harriot, Kenny Wheeler and Stan Tracey, as well as the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
