Ken Howard (composer)
Encyclopedia
Ken Howard is an English songwriter
, lyricist
, author and television director
.
, Ken Howard composed the music and words for many international top 10 hits, including two UK number ones, "Have I the Right?
" (The Honeycombs
) and "The Legend of Xanadu
" (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich
).
Among other performers for whom they have written are Petula Clark
, Phil Collins
, Sacha Distel
, Rolf Harris
, Frankie Howerd
(the theme song for his film Up Pompeii
), Engelbert Humperdinck
, Horst Jankowski
, Eartha Kitt
, Little Eva
, Lulu
and Matthews Southern Comfort.
Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley were the first British composers to write for Elvis Presley
, including the hit "I’ve Lost You" (1970) which he later performed in the film That’s The Way It Is
.
Howard and Blaikley’s ‘space cantata’, Ark 2 (1969), performed by Flaming Youth, drew the comment that Blaikley and Howard "have a wit, gaiety, dignity and melodic flair reminiscent of Leonard Bernstein...which suggest that pop is becoming the serious music – in the proper sense – of the age"
(1983–1985), both subsequently aired in the US on Alistair Cooke
’s Masterpiece Theatre, and the BBC's long-running series of Agatha Christie
’s Miss Marple
(1984–1992)
, music
and documentary film
s. These have included (for the BBC
) A Penny for Your Dreams, John Lennon - A Journey in the Life, The Miracle of Intervale Avenue, Open Mind, Mr Abbott’s Broadway and Sunny Stories; (for ITV
) South Bank Show profiles of the New World Symphony Orchestra
, Danny Kaye
, Frank Sinatra
, Hakan Hardenberger
, Johnnie Ray
and Maxim Vengerov
, EK-OK, and Will Apples Grow on Mars?. The BBC drama A Penny for your Dreams which he co-wrote, composed and directed won the Festival Award at the Celtic Media Festival in Caenarfon in 1988 His BBC films Braveheart and Today I am A Man both won the Royal Television Society Best Children's Factual Award.
He is a director of Landseer Productions Ltd in London.
His first novel, The Young Chieftain, aimed at a teenage audience, was published by Tamarind Books, a division of Random House in September 2010.
He is Chairman of The Casey Trust for Children
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
, lyricist
Lyricist
A lyricist is a songwriter who specializes in lyrics. A singer who writes the lyrics to songs is a singer-lyricist. This differentiates from a singer-composer, who composes the song's melody.-Collaboration:...
, author and television director
Television director
A television director directs the activities involved in making a television program and is part of a television crew.-Duties:The duties of a television director vary depending on whether the production is live or recorded to video tape or video server .In both types of productions, the...
.
International hits in the 1960s and 1970s
In the 1960s and 1970s, in collaboration with Alan BlaikleyAlan Blaikley
-Early life and career:Born in London, where he survived the Blitz, Alan Blaikley was educated at University College School , Hampstead, and Wadham College, Oxford, where he read Classical Moderations and English, and was Reviews Editor of the university newspaper Cherwell.After coming down from...
, Ken Howard composed the music and words for many international top 10 hits, including two UK number ones, "Have I the Right?
Have I the Right?
Have I The Right? was The Honeycombs' debut single and biggest hit. It was composed by Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley, who had made contact with the Honeycombs, a London-based group, then playing under the name of The Sheratons, in the Mildmay Tavern in the Balls Pond Road in Islington, where they...
" (The Honeycombs
The Honeycombs
The Honeycombs were an English beat/pop group, founded in 1963 in North London. The group had one chart-topping hit, the million selling "Have I the Right?", in 1964. After that song the interest in the group ebbed away, and they split up in late 1966...
) and "The Legend of Xanadu
The Legend of Xanadu
"The Legend of Xanadu" is a single by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich that reached number one in the UK Singles Chart in 1968, and was the group's biggest hit...
" (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich , were a British pop/rock group of the 1960s. Two of their single releases sold in excess of one million copies each, and they reached Number One in the UK with the second of them, "The Legend of Xanadu".-Biography:Five friends from Wiltshire, David John Harman,...
).
Among other performers for whom they have written are Petula Clark
Petula Clark
Petula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...
, Phil Collins
Phil Collins
Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist....
, Sacha Distel
Sacha Distel
Sacha Distel was a French singer and guitarist who had hits with a cover version of the Academy Award-winning "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" , "Scoubidou", and "The Good Life". He was born in Paris.-Career:Sacha Distel, born Alexandre Distel, was a son of Russian White émigré Leonid Distel...
, Rolf Harris
Rolf Harris
Rolf Harris, CBE, AM is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter and television personality.Born in Perth, Western Australia, Harris was a champion swimmer before studying art. He moved to England in 1952, where he started to appear on television programmes on which he drew the...
, Frankie Howerd
Frankie Howerd
Francis Alick "Frankie" Howerd OBE was an English comedian and comic actor whose career, described by fellow comedian Barry Cryer as "a series of comebacks", spanned six decades.-Early career:...
(the theme song for his film Up Pompeii
Up Pompeii (film)
Up Pompeii is a 1971 British comedy film directed by Bob Kellett and starring Frankie Howerd and Michael Hordern. The film was shot at Elstree Film Studios, Borehamwood, England...
), Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck (singer)
Engelbert Humperdinck is a British pop singer, best known for his hits including "Release Me " and "After the Lovin'" as well as "The Last Waltz" .-Early life:...
, Horst Jankowski
Horst Jankowski
Horst Jankowski was a classically trained German pianist, most famous for his internationally successful easy listening music.-Biography:...
, Eartha Kitt
Eartha Kitt
Eartha Mae Kitt was an American singer, actress, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 hit recordings of "C'est Si Bon" and the enduring Christmas novelty smash "Santa Baby." Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the...
, Little Eva
Little Eva
Eva Narcissus Boyd , known by the stage name of Little Eva , was an American pop singer.-Biography:...
, Lulu
Lulu (singer)
Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, OBE , best known by her stage name Lulu, is a Scottish singer, actress, and television personality who has been successful in the entertainment business from the 1960s through to the present day...
and Matthews Southern Comfort.
Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley were the first British composers to write for Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, including the hit "I’ve Lost You" (1970) which he later performed in the film That’s The Way It Is
Elvis: That's the Way it Is
Elvis: That's the Way It Is is a documentary movie directed by Denis Sanders about Elvis Presley that was released on November 11, 1970. The film documents Elvis' Summer Festival in Las Vegas during August 1970...
.
Howard and Blaikley’s ‘space cantata’, Ark 2 (1969), performed by Flaming Youth, drew the comment that Blaikley and Howard "have a wit, gaiety, dignity and melodic flair reminiscent of Leonard Bernstein...which suggest that pop is becoming the serious music – in the proper sense – of the age"
TV themes
Howard and Blaikley have also been responsible for theme and incidental music for several television drama series including The Flame Trees of Thika (1981) and By the Sword DividedBy the Sword Divided
By the Sword Divided is a British television series produced by the BBC between 1983 and 1985.The series was a historical drama set during the mid 17th century, dealing with the impact of the English Civil War on the fictional Lacey family, made up of both Royalist and Parliamentarian supporters.It...
(1983–1985), both subsequently aired in the US on Alistair Cooke
Alistair Cooke
Alfred Alistair Cooke KBE was a British/American journalist, television personality and broadcaster. Outside his journalistic output, which included Letter from America and Alistair Cooke's America, he was well known in the United States as the host of PBS Masterpiece Theater from 1971 to 1992...
’s Masterpiece Theatre, and the BBC's long-running series of Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
’s Miss Marple
Miss Marple (TV series)
Miss Marple is a British television series based on the Miss Marple murder mystery novels by Agatha Christie. It starred Joan Hickson in the title role, and aired from 1984 to 1992. All twelve original Miss Marple Christie novels have been dramatised. The screenplays were written by T. R...
(1984–1992)
Musicals
Howard and Blaikley have written two West End musicals, Mardi Gras (Prince of Wales Theatre, 1976) and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (Wyndham's Theatre, 1984–1986), and two BBC TV musicals Orion (1977) and Ain’t Many Angels (1978).Film career
As a British film maker Howard has worked extensively in dramaDrama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
, music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
and documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
s. These have included (for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
) A Penny for Your Dreams, John Lennon - A Journey in the Life, The Miracle of Intervale Avenue, Open Mind, Mr Abbott’s Broadway and Sunny Stories; (for ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
) South Bank Show profiles of the New World Symphony Orchestra
New World Symphony Orchestra
The New World Symphony is the United States' only full-time orchestral academy preparing musicians for careers in symphony orchestras and ensembles...
, Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye was a celebrated American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian...
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Hakan Hardenberger
Håkan Hardenberger
Håkan Hardenberger is a Swedish trumpeter. Taking up the trumpet at the age of eight under the guidance of hometown teacher Bo Nilsson, Hardenberger pursued further studies at the Paris Conservatoire, with Pierre Thibaud, and in Los Angeles with Thomas Stevens...
, Johnnie Ray
Johnnie Ray
Johnnie Ray was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Popular for most of the 1950s, Ray has been cited by critics as a major precursor of what would become rock and roll, for his jazz and blues-influenced music and his animated stage personality.-Early life:John Alvin Ray was born in...
and Maxim Vengerov
Maxim Vengerov
Maxim Alexandrovich Vengerov is a violinist, violist, and conductor who was born in the Soviet Union.-Youth:Born on 20 August 1974 in Novosibirsk, Russia, to a family with musical tradition....
, EK-OK, and Will Apples Grow on Mars?. The BBC drama A Penny for your Dreams which he co-wrote, composed and directed won the Festival Award at the Celtic Media Festival in Caenarfon in 1988 His BBC films Braveheart and Today I am A Man both won the Royal Television Society Best Children's Factual Award.
He is a director of Landseer Productions Ltd in London.
Other Activities
He is also co-founder and director of Sophisticated Games Ltd, having co-devised the best-selling board game of Sophie's World and publishing the million-selling Lord of the Rings board game as well as numerous other successful games including Ingenious and The Hobbit.His first novel, The Young Chieftain, aimed at a teenage audience, was published by Tamarind Books, a division of Random House in September 2010.
He is Chairman of The Casey Trust for Children