The Three Eras of TV Themes

TVC 626.6: Jon Burlingame, author of Music for Prime Time, talks to Ed about the three eras of music for television, and how the role of music supervisors on a television series has become particularly important today, when many shows use pre-existing songs to convey the theme and mood of a series. Music for Prime Time: A History of American Television Themes and Scoring is available in bookstores everywhere through Oxford University Press and Amazon.com.

Jon Burlingame is also the producer, along with Doug Schwartz, of The Quinn Martin Collection, a three-volume CD collection released by La La Land Records. Volume 1, released in 2019, features music composed by Jerry Goldsmith, John Parker, Dave Grusin, and Lalo Schifrin for Barnaby Jones, Cannon, Dan August, and Most Wanted, respectively; Volume 2, released in 2019, features music composed for The Invaders by Dominic Frontiere, Richard Markowitz, Sidney Cutner, Duane Tatro, and others; Volume 3, released in 2020, features music composed by Patrick Williams for several episodes of The Streets of San Francisco (including the pilot movie), plus Williams' score for "The Seduction Squad," an episode of A Man Called Sloane. According to Jon, a fourth volume is scheduled for release in 2024. If you love the music of Quinn Martin's shows, all of these volumes are highly worth adding to your collection.

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