Laurie Johnson, a British composer who was at the forefront of the 1960s music scene, is best known for composing the famous theme song for the series The Avengers (The Avengers). Born in the Hampstead neighborhood of north London on February 7, 1927, Laurence Reginald Ward Johnson studied at the Royal College of Music, where he was taught by Herbert Howells and Ralph Vaughan Williams, and played the French horn with the Coldstream Guards before working as an arranger for Ted Heath and Jack Parnell. He won an Ivor Novello Award for his score for the musical Look Up Your Daughters (1959), written by Lionel Bart, and at the same time produced sound-track recordings for the KPM label and orchestral jazz albums for Pye Records, such as The New Big Sound of Laurie Johnson (1963). However, it was his work for film and television that brought Laurie Johnson public recognition, beginning with the soundtracks for The Good Companions (1957), The Moonraker (1959), Tiger Bay (1959), Dr. Strangelove (Dr. Strangelove, 1964), First Men on the Moon (1964), You Must Be Joking! (1965), And Soon the Darkness (1970), and Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter (1974). In 1965, Laurie Johnson was commissioned to compose the music for the television series The Avengers—four years after writing the score for Top Secret—and created a now-famous theme for the opening credits, which he would reuse for the spin-off The New Avengers (1976), along with other scores for the TV movie Mister Jerico (1971) and the series Jason King (1971) and The Professionals (1977). Alongside this work for the screen, the composer continued to work for the stage, notably on the musical The Four Musketeers (1967), and for radio, composing the theme for the BBC program Sounds of Jazz. He recorded several albums of jazz and symphonic music, blending the two in Symphony: Synthesis (1969), a work featuring musicians Tubby Hayes, Joe Harriott, Kenny Wheeler, Stan Tracey, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1997, he performed live on a tour with his own orchestra, the London Big Band, conducted by Jack Parnell. Awarded the title of Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2014, Laurie Johnson passed away on January 16, 2024, at the age of 96.
