Johnny Harris

The British Years (1932-1972)

Johnny Harris (born John Stanley Livingstone Harris, 1932) is a Scottish born composer, producer, arranger, conductor and musical director. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland; and a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music in London. He has lived in the US since 1972. Originally a trumpet player with big bands led by Vic Lewis, Ken Mackintosh, Cyril Stapleton and a member of the short-lived beat group The Shubdubs with drummer Jimmie Nicol and organist Roger Coulam. In 1964 he also made a Beatles cover version album and EP called "Beatlemania" with drummer Jimmie Nicol which resulted in Jimmie replacing the ill Ringo Starr on a worldwide Beatles tour. He joined Pye Records in 1965 as an arranger and conductor for producer Tony Hatch, his wife Jackie Trent, had an un-credited roll as conductor on the Nancy Sinatra In London album and also worked with many more artists in the sixties as a staff member at Pye. He also worked freelance for many other record labels in Great Britain and Europe where he was also well known and respected for his unique style. He was a regular arranger, conductor, producer for Petula Clark until she left Pye in 1971. The first official colour programme on BBC1 was a concert by Petula Clark with the Johnny Harris Orchestra from the Royal Albert Hall, London, broadcast at midnight on 14th/15th November, 1969. He arranged, conducted and produced the majority of tracks on the Shirley Bassey albums "Something", "Something Else", "I Capricorn", "And I Love You So", "Never Never Never" and "All By Myself" and many tracks on various Tom Jones albums. He was the regular musical director for the BBC light entertainment show Happening For Lulu in 1968-69 starring singer Lulu and conducted her Eurovision Song Contest winner Boom Bang-A-Bang in 1969 which garned a great deal of press coverage resulting in a solo record deal with Warner Bros. UK. The first single released was "Footprints On The Moon" (1969) and the first album was "Movements" (1970). He was the musical director for the BBC/ZDF co-production "Pop Go The Sixties" broadcast on BBC1 on 31 December 1969 as well for his own BBC Show Of The Week called "Up Tight" featuring Georgie Fame, Lulu and many other TV shows with such artists as Mike and Bernie Winters and actor-singer Keith Michell.

He composed the scores for several cult movies including Fragment of Fear (1970), Bloomfield (1971) his score was recorded in 1969 featuring Maurice Gibb of The Bee Gees, I Want What I Want (1972) and Man in the Wilderness (1971).

The American Years (1972-2012)

He moved to the US to record and conduct his orchestra in Las Vegas with Paul Anka where Elvis Presley asked him to lead his Vegas band. Johnny wanted to concentrate on scoring for film and television which lead to a long-time gig as the musical director for Lynda Carter after he scored the third season of her "Wonder Woman (TV series)" in 1979. Lynda Carter and the Johnny Harris Orchestra toured the world in 1980 to support her debut single for Motown Records. His 1980 Miami disco hit 'Odyssey' (TK Records) featured prominently on popular video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas playing on Bounce FM funk radio, as well as being in the lowrider challenge mission. The song was also featured in the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century episode "Space Rockers", Johnny originally wrote the song for that episode and arranged the opening Buck Rogers in the 25th Century theme music composed by Stu Phillips. The first 45 seconds where Buck is spinning is an original Johnny Harris composition up until Stu's theme starts.

Johnny Harris composed romantic instrumental themes created out of the letters of a women's first name are one of his current project's.