Johnny Hawksworth

Johnny Hawksworth pursued a musical path expansive enough to encompass the achievements of two separate individuals, functioning first as bassist and occasional composer with Ted Heath's band throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, later as an arranger and composer for British television, and still later as a film composer in the 1960s. Piano study began in boyhood, yet the mandatory lessons quickly lost their appeal. An eventual change to upright bass followed, and an interview on the Vinyl Vulture website records his observation that the instrument's fretboard could be approached exactly like a piano keyboard. Mastery arrived rapidly; the resulting speed and facility brought high visibility within postwar British jazz circles, particularly after he entered Ted Heath's Music, one of England's leading big-band-style ensembles of the 1950s. That group recorded prolifically and traveled internationally. Along the way Hawksworth contributed original pieces that formed a lasting core of the band's repertory, earning widespread listener admiration that culminated in an English poll naming him the world's finest practitioner of his instrument. Attention then shifted toward scoring for television programs and commercials, where he worked with multiple producers and publishers; from the 1960s onward these activities supplied his principal livelihood as composer, producer, and arranger. Additional output included American-style blues-based compositions issued under the name Bunny J. Browne and classical works credited to John Steinway. Residence in Sydney, Australia, began in 1984.