Biography
Derek Hilton composed hundreds of television themes during his extended service as musical director at Britain’s Granada Television and also functioned as arranger for vocalists such as Shirley Bassey, Tony Bennett, and Tom Jones. Born in Whitfield, England, on February 3, 1927, he started piano instruction at six and fronted his own ensemble, the Rhythmic Blue Notes, by fourteen. Called up in 1945 to the King’s Own Yorkshire Infantry, he instead performed piano for the Stars in Battledress revue alongside entertainers that included Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. He further arranged for Gracie Fields and Kay Kendall before resuming civilian life and touring with bandleaders Johnny Dankworth and Sonny Rose. In 1953 Hilton returned to the Manchester region to join the faculty of the Regional School of Music at Decibel Studios; while there he played in a jazz trio that was engaged in 1956 for Granada’s inaugural press reception, after which the producers of Spot the Tune recruited him to stand in for the regular pianist. The Derek Hilton Trio soon became a regular feature on the daily Granada programs Sharp at Four and People and Places. Hilton subsequently supplied themes and incidental music for numerous other Granada series, among them Coronation Street, All Our Yesterdays, Mr. Rose, The Caesars, Paris 1900, Spoils of War, and A Kind of Loving. By his own estimate he wrote roughly 250 such themes, one of which—for the 1973 series Country Matters—earned an Ivor Novello Certificate of Honour. When television duties permitted, he also worked extensively as a pop arranger, collaborating in addition with Johnny Mathis, Jack Jones, and Buddy Greco. Following a Bafta nomination for his score to the 1986 production Lost Empires, Hilton left Granada and spent several years as musical director for the P&O and Cunard cruise lines until his death on July 11, 2005.