Alan Tew is a British

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

and

arranger In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orches ...

. He got his start in the 1950s as the pianist and arranger for the Len Turner Band based in London. Tew is known as a composer of

library music Production music (also known as stock music or library music) is recorded music that can be licensed to customers for use in film, television, radio and other media. Often, the music is produced and owned by production music libraries. Backgroun ...

, including the theme tunes for British

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

programmes, ''

Doctor in the House ''Doctor in the House'' is a 1954 British comedy film directed by Ralph Thomas and produced by Betty Box. The screenplay, by Nicholas Phipps, Richard Gordon and Ronald Wilkinson, is based on the 1952 novel by Gordon, and follows a group of st ...

'' called "Bond Street Parade", and '' ...And Mother Makes Three''. He also composed all the music for the

1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...

series, '' The Hanged Man'', some of which was used as incidental music for ''

The Two Ronnies ''The Two Ronnies'' is a British television comedy sketch show starring Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. It was created by Bill Cotton and aired on BBC1 from April 1971 to December 1987. The usual format included sketches, solo sections, seria ...

'', ''

The Sweeney ''The Sweeney'' is a 1970s British television police drama focusing on two members of the Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police specialising in tackling armed robbery and violent crime in London. It stars John Thaw as Detective Ins ...

'', ''

SpongeBob SquarePants ''SpongeBob SquarePants'' (or simply ''SpongeBob'') is an American animated comedy television series created by marine science educator and animator Stephen Hillenburg for Nickelodeon. It chronicles the adventures of the title character a ...

'', and the 2009

Blaxploitation Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president o ...

spoof ''

Black Dynamite ''Black Dynamite'' is a 2009 American blaxploitation action comedy film starring Michael Jai White, Tommy Davidson, and Salli Richardson. The film was directed by Scott Sanders and co-written by White, Sanders, and Byron Minns, who also co-star ...

''. One of the cuts composed for ''The Hanged Man'', entitled "The Big One", would eventually become used as the theme and bumper music for the American television series, ''

The People's Court ''The People's Court'' is an American arbitration-based reality court show, featuring an arbitrator handling small claims disputes in a simulated courtroom set. Within the court show genre, it is the first of all arbitration-based reality sty ...

''. "The Big One" would also be used in an episode of the British

detective A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads th ...

show ''

Van der Valk ''Van der Valk'' is a British television crime drama series produced for the ITV (TV network), ITV network. The first series ran from 1972 to 1992; followed by a remake in 2020. Created by Nicolas Freeling and based on his novels about a dete ...

'', as well as the erotic films '' Barbara Broadcast'' (1977), ''

The Satisfiers of Alpha Blue ''The Satisfiers of Alpha Blue'' is a 1981 American pornographic science fiction film directed by Gerard Damiano and starring Robert Kerman, Herschel Savage and Lysa Thatcher. Plot In a futuristic society called 'Alpha Blue', sexual needs are f ...

'' (1980), and '' Malibu High'' (1979). Tew also led his own

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

, The Alan Tew Orchestra, and collaborated with

Cat Stevens Yusuf Islam (born Steven Demetre Georgiou; ), commonly known by his stage names Cat Stevens, Yusuf, and Yusuf / Cat Stevens, is a British singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. His musical style consists of folk, pop, rock, and, later in ...

. During his career, Tew made a number of orchestral albums including ''This Is My Scene'' on

Phase 4 Stereo Phase 4 Stereo was a recording process created by the U.K. Decca Records label in 1961. The process was used on U.K. Decca recordings and also those of its American subsidiary London Records during the 1960s. Phase 4 Stereo recordings were cre ...

(1967) and ''The Magnificent Westerns'' on

CBS Records CBS Records may refer to: * CBS Records or CBS/Sony, former name of Sony Music, a global record company * CBS Records International, label for Columbia Records recordings released outside North America from 1962 to 1990 * CBS Records (2006), founde ...

(1969).

References

External links

* * Living people British composers Year of birth missing (living people) {{UK-composer-stub