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The old Edgar Wallace TV series is again showing on late night TV here in OZ- sorry if this has been raised before, but anyone know who played the guitar on the TV show theme music version- bit slower and more jazzy than the Shads version, no echo or vibrato arm use, but sounds like the guitar player used a little studio reverb and a touch of tremolo. Some versions of the theme didn't include guitar BTW...

My guesses...Vic Flick? Bert Weedon? Eric Ford, or someone else doing session work from that era ?(the early episode TV shows were copyrighted 1960..)

The recordings for this cinema film series (it was only ever a TV series in the sense that it was later sold to ITV for showing in late-night filler slots) were supervised by Bernard Ebbinghouse, who also did some work with Cliff Richard in later years.

Guitarist? Well, we know that Judd Proctor did a fair amount of work with Ebbinghouse in the early 1960s and was a first call session-man. The playing on the theme tune sounds a teeny bit hesitant to me - but that could be because the guitarist was sight reading the melody, which is not the easiest tune in the world to decipher in print.

Thanks Jim! It was quite possibly dear old Judd Proctor- forgot to mention him...I'll always remember that he did some super stuff with the Ray Ellington Quartet and Max Geldray in the Goon Show musical breaks!

I did a little anorak type interweb searching on this Edgar Wallace theme music, and it seems to me that there were actually three versions of the TV theme- early episodes had a slowish version with the melody line played by a flute, then the slowish version with the main melody played on electric guitar- sort of typical contemporary jazzy 'spy' style with some interesting chords, like Vic Flick's James Bond theme, then the later episodes featured a faster 'beat' group type version, similar (but not the same) to the Shads version, which many people were familiar with by that time..

Another TV theme which puts me in mind of this tune is the theme from the later TV series starring Edward Woodward, -'Callan' - which had a similarly haunting minor chord guitar based theme...

Sorry..but I just LOVE all this stuff! I can sit and play it for hours...great fun and the tunes and chords can be challenging to work out by ear and from memory!

Thanks Jim, but that's not the original Callan TV theme...

But this is...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QfOO_686ys

That's the one, John. I love it.

cockroach wrote:Thanks Jim, but that's not the original Callan TV theme...

But this is...

[ ... ]

I know it's not the original.

It's the Secrets with me on lead guitar (and Al Holmes of Sounds Inc on tenor).

JimN wrote:

cockroach wrote:Thanks Jim, but that's not the original Callan TV theme...

But this is...

[ ... ]

I know it' not the original.

It's the Secrets with me on lead guitar (and Al Holmes of Sounds Inc on tenor).

Cor. It's delicious. Bloody delicious.

J

JimN wrote:

cockroach wrote:Thanks Jim, but that's not the original Callan TV theme...

But this is...

[ ... ]

I know it' not the original.

It's the Secrets with me on lead guitar (and Al Holmes of Sounds Inc on tenor).

Oh, sorry old chap! I thought it sounded different - no flatwounds!

Jim's delicious guitar tones on The Secrets' Theme From Callan are from his Yamaha SGV800.
Alan Holmes' sax break has the atmosphere of a smoky nightclub at midnight. However (spoiler alert) I actually recorded it as an overdub in the tiny front room of Alan Holmes' house in Sidcup, South-East London, at 10.30 on a Sunday morning!
Ray