The Music of the Avengers

[Andrew Pixley]

That’s extraordinary, thanks Andrew.

Happy to help when I can... which, sadly, isn't always quite as often as I'd like to...

I am so so sad to hear that it got so close to becoming a reality after all these years and that it couldn’t quite make it the distance at the very end.

It has been a terrible year or so in so many ways with the loss of people like Tim, and then the situation where so many amazing people at Network lost their jobs. All very tough.

I know that this was one that Tim wanted doing and certainly Steve picked up the baton and was also doing all he could to get at least the first set - for which we'd had the masters back - out there.

I truly hope someone else (La La Land, perhaps?) picks this up and is able to complete it.

I know that the owner are looking at other options to pursue.

I wasn’t sure all those masters existed anymore, so it’s heartening to me that at least they’re out there somewhere waiting to be released someday… Fingers crossed.

Indeed. Not all the material existed, but the fixed breakdown that we had for the first set was as follows:

THE AVENGERS - SOUNDTRACK: 1965-1966

Disc 1
1: Opening Titles
2-12: "Too Many Christmas Trees"
13: "The Master Minds" [an episode that had no new music recorded but used one of three 'stock' cues - Theme A]
14-24:"Death at Bargain Prices" [including Theme B]
25-26: "Dial a Deadly Number" [partial score only]
27: "The Cybernauts" [partial score - sadly, only one of the five cues exists; the tape had been physically edited]
28-36: "The Grave-Diggers"
37-46: "The Murder Market" [including Theme C]
47-51: "A Surfeit of H2O" [partial score]
52-63: "Room Without a View"
64: Closing Titles - Short Version

Disc 2
1: Opening Parts ID [i.e. bumper]
2-5: "Two's a Crowd" [partial score]
6-22: "Man-Eater of Surrey Green"
23-40: "Castle De'Ath"
41: Closing Shots ID [i.e bumper]

Disc 3
1: Opening Parts ID
2-15: "The Hour That Never Was" (aka "An Hour to Spare")
16-26: "The Thirteenth Hole"
27-29: "Silent Dust" (aka "Strictly for the Worms") [partial score]
30: Closing Shots ID

Disc 4
1: Opening Parts ID
2-23: "Small Game for Big Hunters"
24-45: "The Girl from Auntie"
46-61: "Quick-Quick Slow Death"
62: Closing Shots ID

Disc 5
1: Opening Parts ID
2-14: "The Danger Makers"
15-29: "A Touch of Brimstone"
30-47: "What the Butler Saw"
48-59: "The House That Jack Built"
60-72: "A Sense of History"
73: Closing Shots ID

Disc 6
1-2: US Prologue
3-13: "How to Suceed... at Murder"
14-27: "Honey for the Prince"
28: Closing Titles - Long Version
29-73: Bonus Tracks: Overlays, Alternate Takes and Sound Effects

For the next two sets, a more approximate track listing ran:

THE AVENGERS - SOUNDTRACK: 1966-1967

Disc 1
1-3: American Ident/Prologue A/Opening Titles
4-23: "The Fear Merchants" [including items of stock music]
24-54: "Escape in Time" [including items of stock music]
55-61: Stock Music [unused library items recorded at first session]
62: American Ident [i.e. bumper]

Disc 2
1: American Ident
2-15: "The Bird Who Knew Too Much" [including items of stock music]
16-34: "From Venus with Love" [including items of stock music]
35-53: "The See-Through Man"
54: American Ident

Disc 3
1: American Ident
2-15: "The Winged Avenger" [including items of stock music]
16-32: "The Living Dead"
33-36: "The Hidden Tiger" [partial score; including items of stock music]
37-43: "Never, Never Say Die" [partial score; including items of stock music]
44-56: "Epic" [including items of stock music]
57: American Ident

Disc 4
1: American Ident
2-5: "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station" [partial score]
6-15: "The Superlative Seven" [partial score]
16-25: "The Joker" [partial score]
26-31: "Something Nasty in the Nursery" [partial score]
32-57: "Who's Who???"
58-68: "Death's Door" [partial score]
69: American Ident

Disc 5
1: American Ident
2-9: "Return of the Cybernauts" [partial score]
10-21: "Dead Man's Treasure"
22-31: "The £50,000 Breakfast"
32-41: "You Have Just Been Murdered"
42-44: "The Positive Negative Men" [partial score]
45: American Ident

Disc 6
1: American Ident
2-9: "Murdersville" [partial score]
10-11: "Mission... Highly Improbable" [partial score]
12: Closing Titles - Long Version
13-68: Bonus Tracks: Overlays, Alternate Takes and Sound Effects

THE AVENGERS - SOUNDTRACK: 1967-1968

Disc 1
1: New Mix Main Titles
2-10: "Invasion of the Earthmen"
11-26: "The Forget-Me-Knot"
27-35: "The Curious Case of the Countless Clues"
36-43: "Split!"
44-48: "Get-A-Way!" [partial score]
49: American Ident

Disc 2
1: American Ident
2-15: "Look - (stop me if you've heard this one) But There Were These Two Fellers..."
16: "Whoever Shot Poor George Oblique Stroke XR40?" [single cue to augment Howard Blake score]
17-38: "Legacy of Death" [last two cues missing]
39-43: "They Keep Killing Steed" [partial score]
44-45: "The Interrogators" [two cues to augment Howard Blake score]
46-59: "The Morning After"
60: New End Titles
61-80: Bonus Tracks: Overlays, Alternate Takes and Sound Effects

There we go. So - keep your fingers crossed. If this does progress any further I have no idea whether I'll be involved or not. Main thing that I hope for is that as much of the material is made commercially available to the audience that wants to hear it in a manner that the owners are happy with.

All the best

Andrew

[AgentCooper]

Thanks for posting so many details about the soundtracks that would have been, but seeing these track lists just makes me sadder. I’ve longed for proper, comprehensive (or comprehensive as possible) soundtrack sets like this for The Avengers for decades, and it’s such a shame they’re on hold. Here’s hoping they find a new way forward, and I hope you remain involved with the project if they do, as your involvement will only make it better. (And very sad about Network, in general. It was an amazing company that did so much to preserve the legacy of these great old shows and pop culture.)

[Andrew Pixley]

Thanks for posting so many details about the soundtracks that would have been, but seeing these track lists just makes me sadder.

Sorry about that... it wasn't the intention. I'd copied and pasted the basic listing to demonstrate a) that, yes, so much of this material does still exist and b) how Tim, Steve and the Network team always wanted to aim very high (and this was a project that Tim was particularly excited about when I started work on it last August)...

... and it is easy to feel saddened by what wasn't rather than celebrating what was. We may not have got 14 discs of "The Avengers"... but we did get 7 discs of "Danger Man", 2 discs of "The Sentimental Agent", 2 discs of "Gideon's Way", 1 disc of "The Baron", 5 discs of "The Saint", 5 discs of "Man in a Suitcase", 6 discs of "The Prisoner", 3 discs of "The Champions", 3 discs of "Department S", 3 discs of "Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)", 1 disc of "Strange Report", 2 discs of "Jason King", 5 discs of "The Protectors", 2 discs of "The Zoo Gang", all that was left of "Return of the Saint", 4 discs of "Space Precinct" and 2 discs of "New Captain Scarlet". So, over a decade or so, Network did pretty well...

Here’s hoping they find a new way forward, and I hope you remain involved with the project if they do, as your involvement will only make it better.

That's very kind - but all I really do is the maths of checking and seeing if stuff will fit. Certainly, I wouldn't be essential to any process of getting this material out there in the way that the owners want.

(And very sad about Network, in general. It was an amazing company that did so much to preserve the legacy of these great old shows and pop culture.)

Indeed. A lovely venture undertaking projects that nobody else would consider... and a chance to work with some amazing people. And it's the people that I'm really missing at the moment...

All the best

Andrew

[Frankymole]

It'd be nice if Silva Screen did it (are they still going? I've got their Arthur of the Britons soundtrack so they will do niche)...

[AgentCooper]

It'd be nice if Silva Screen did it (are they still going? I've got their Arthur of the Britons soundtrack so they will do niche)...

They do, yes. They’re still the ones who put out the Doctor Who soundtracks currently, amongst other things (like Good Omens, just recently).

[AgentCooper]

... and it is easy to feel saddened by what wasn't rather than celebrating what was. We may not have got 14 discs of "The Avengers"... but we did get 7 discs of "Danger Man", 2 discs of "The Sentimental Agent", 2 discs of "Gideon's Way", 1 disc of "The Baron", 5 discs of "The Saint", 5 discs of "Man in a Suitcase", 6 discs of "The Prisoner", 3 discs of "The Champions", 3 discs of "Department S", 3 discs of "Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)", 1 disc of "Strange Report", 2 discs of "Jason King", 5 discs of "The Protectors", 2 discs of "The Zoo Gang", all that was left of "Return of the Saint", 4 discs of "Space Precinct" and 2 discs of "New Captain Scarlet". So, over a decade or so, Network did pretty well...

You’re absolutely right, of course. The work they (and you) did over the years on these shows was exceptional. (Hence why it’s just sad to me that The Avengers didn’t make it under the wire for the Network treatment, as you know it would have been just as great!

[Andrew Pixley]

You’re absolutely right, of course. The work they (and you) did over the years on these shows was exceptional. (Hence why it’s just sad to me that The Avengers didn’t make it under the wire for the Network treatment, as you know it would have been just as great!

It's a shame we didn't get that far. I also spent six months of 2020 doing the Blu-Ray viewing notes for "The New Avengers" but - oh, well - that didn't happen either for a whole stack of reasons that I was never privy too. Fun to do though. And I think my perspective these days is invariably: "Okay, I'll start this job and assume that it's never going to be published, so I'd better be sure that it's a job I'll enjoy doing... and if by some remote chance it does get published, then maybe some other people can enjoy it too... but that's an added bonus and I have no right to expect that."

Anyway... nothing to stop other enterprising people doing soundtrack albums and Blu-Rays and so on. And I hope that they have a lot of fun doing it! :)

All the best

Andrew

[darren]

Thanks for sharing the proposed track listings, Andrew.

Too Many Christmas Trees, The Master Minds and The Murder Market have very similar scores - there's a sting they all have.
The early season 4 episodes have some lovely arrangements of the Avengers theme:
1. There's the kind of lounge music version heard at the fashion show in Two's A Crowd and the dinner party in Dial a Deadly Number (and other places - Silent Dust, Murder Market).
2. There's the jaunty version heard at the beginning of The Master Minds as Steed and Peel drive to the Minister's house and in Dial A Deadly Number when the various characters check their beepers plus for Steed's miniature railway trip in The Grave diggers.
3. And the very memorable creepy slow version of the theme.

I'd love to own those one day!

Shame that Johnson's scores for Fog and Love All weren't on the proposed season 6 collection.

I remember a bootleg Howard Blake album from some London Cult film & TV shop. From Game - It included some reused music cues from Death at Bargain Prices. And some pieces that weren't on the Blake Silvascreen Album.

[Andrew Pixley]

Hello Darren :)

Thanks for sharing the proposed track listings, Andrew.

Glad it's of interest. Still fingers crossed that somebody picks it up...

The early season 4 episodes have some lovely arrangements of the Avengers theme:
1. There's the kind of lounge music version heard at the fashion show in Two's A Crowd and the dinner party in Dial a Deadly Number (and other places - Silent Dust, Murder Market).
2. There's the jaunty version heard at the beginning of The Master Minds as Steed and Peel drive to the Minister's house and in Dial A Deadly Number when the various characters check their beepers plus for Steed's miniature railway trip in The Grave diggers.
3. And the very memorable creepy slow version of the theme.

I think that these are three library items recorded alongside the cues for "Too Many Christmas Trees" and "Death at Bargain Prices":

Theme A Version Take 2 (2:01)
"The Master Minds": Act One opens with Steed driving a sleeping Mrs Peel through the countryside in his Bentley to the home of Sir Clive Todd.

Theme B Version Take 4 (1:49)
"Death at Bargain Prices: Act One: Steed lures Farthingale out of the rest room to gain access to the private elevator up to the top floor. Farthingale alerts Wentworth, and Steed emerges into Kane’s antiquated penthouse apartment.

Theme C Version Take 2 (2:35)
"The Murder Market" pre-credits: Jonathan Stone meets Miss Wakefield for a date at an aquarium…

Shame that Johnson's scores for Fog and Love All weren't on the proposed season 6 collection.

There was a tape marked "Love All", but - sadly - the contents of the tape didn't match the label.

I remember a bootleg Howard Blake album from some London Cult film & TV shop. From Game - It included some reused music cues from Death at Bargain Prices. And some pieces that weren't on the Blake Silvascreen Album.

The sessions for some of Howard Blake's episodes also included cues from Laurie Johnson; Network didn't have the rights to issue the scores by Howard.

All the best

Andrew

[Allard]

Finger crossed this one day sees the light of day.

That being said: I'm as much hoping for an OST release for the Dankworth Avengers music as well.

And for The Saint monochrome soundtrack as well, yes we got a terrific Network Saint colour OST release, but I would have preferred one for the earlier episodes.