Ron Goodwin

Ron Goodwin0:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty four, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:29

Our castaway this week is a musician.

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He's a specialist in light music and in film music.

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Composer, arranger and conductor, Ron Goodwin. Ron, could you endure loneliness, do you think? I think so, Roy. I really do have a a strong belief in a higher power, the creative force of the universe, if you like to put it that way. And I do feel that uh I'm not alone most of the time and that uh whatever I'm doing is what I'm supposed to be doing. So I would feel that if I was on this desert island it must be what I'm supposed to be doing at the time and I'd have to make the most of it, really. You do have this very limited ration of music, just eight discs. Did you have any plan in choosing them? Yes, I thought I'd choose things that would give me some kind of personal memory or a bit of a laugh or something like that. Well let's have the first one. What's that?

Ron Goodwin1:13

Yeah.

Ron Goodwin1:20

Yeah.

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Well, I'm terribly fond of my dogs. We've got three of them.

Presenter1:26

And my own personal dog is a thoroughbred mungrel, direct descendant from Battersea Dogs Home. And since I understand that I can't take a dog with me No, well, I'd like to have the record of the singing dogs just to remind me of the dogs at home. And what would you like them to sing? Well, what would be better than Pat a Cake, Patty Cake?

Speaker 22:05

Ha ha ha

Speaker 22:24

Uh

Speaker 22:24

Happy Boom!

Presenter2:27

The Singing Dogs, believe it or not. Ron, where were you born? In Plymouth. Your father a member, I believe, of the Devon Constabulary. No, not the Devon Constabulary, no. He was actually a member of the Metropolitan Police Force, the London Police. What was he doing down there?

Ron Goodwin2:41

Longhood

Presenter2:43

Well, in those days there was no Ministry of Defence police force, so the Metropolitan Police used to do all the duties that the Ministry of Defence Police do now. I see. And he was sent with a lot of other coppers to do security duty at Devonport Dockyard.

Speaker 22:58

Mm-hmm.

Presenter2:58

And whilst he was there he met my mother and uh my brother and I were born. And then when I was nine years old, I think somebody at Scotland Yard said, Whatever happened to all those coppers we sent to Plymouth, send them back immediately, so we all moved back to London. Were you a musical family?

Ron Goodwin3:09

Send them back immediately.

Presenter3:13

No. My brother and I were forced to take piano lessons at the age of five, because everybody else did. But we weren't all that particularly interested at that time. In fact, I never really got interested in music until I was eleven years old and went to a school that had a school orchestra.

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And then I was so fascinated with the idea of people playing and banging and scraping things together and uh making wonderful noises that I asked if I could join the the orchestra.

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And the music master, one Vernon J. Todd, said, Well, if you'd like to learn to play the trumpet, you can join, because that's what we're short of. So that's what I did.

Ron Goodwin3:45

And

Ron Goodwin3:51

So that's what

Presenter3:52

And they had one for you to play on the market. Yes, yes, they had one that I was able to learn on. And my very first performance with the school orchestra was of the

Ron Goodwin3:54

Yeah.

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Grand March and Tannhauser, which starts with a trumpet fanfare, and uh my trumpet had a rotary change from B flat to A, and I was uh had it turned the wrong way, and I was playing a semitone out from the other two trumpets. Well, it made you stand out from the others. You moved b up to London, so another teacher had to be found. Yes, I I continued piano lessons with a Mr. Knott, I remember. We lived in uh Kensal Ryes at that time.

Ron Goodwin4:12

Yeah.

Speaker 34:12

It made you stand out from

Speaker 24:14

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 34:14

Yeah.

Ron Goodwin4:15

Yeah.

Presenter4:29

and uh continued piano lessons with him, but uh my real interest was in the trumpet and in writing music. I started at my secondary school, as we used to call them then, to take music as a supplementary subject for matriculation and that uh was really rudimentary uh part writing, three and four part writing and uh r rudimentary harmony.

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And I was fascinated by that, the idea of actually being able to write things down that other people could look at and play. You had also started getting interested in jazz, hadn't you? Yes. We had a a sort of offshoot from the school orchestra, our dance band, which we called the Woodchoppers. And we started to get a few gigs at church halls and things around the area. And we all got very interested in jazz, Fat Swallow and Bic Spider Beck, and all those sort of musicians. Where did the name come from? Oh, we were all Woody Herman fans, of course, as well. And we used his At the Woodchoppers Ball as our signature tune.

Ron Goodwin5:20

Yeah.

Ron Goodwin5:23

Yeah.

Presenter5:29

Let's have your second record. Well, a musician that I very much admired in those days and tried to emulate as a trumpet player was a jazz trumpet player called Bunny Berrigan.

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And uh I used to imagine that I was Bunny Berrigan when I went out on these little gigs as we called them together. And I made a transcription of the record that I'd like to hear now that we could play with our band and it was called I Can't Get Started. How many in your band? Oh, we had I think at that time about five or six. I think Mr Berrigan on this disc has more. He had the advantage.

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I CAN'T GET Started by Bunny Berrican and His Orchestra. Did you have dreams of being an orchestra leader?

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Not really at that time. Uh I mean shortly after that period we uh started going in for the Melody Maker Dance Band Championships and we actually uh I think we came fourth in the South London one year in nineteen forty five I think that was. Well that was making a mark wasn't it? Oh yes yes but uh it was really more of a cooperative band and I mean I wasn't uh the leader in the sense that I was employing the other musicians. We were all working together to try and do something. You had no idea that you wanted to be the Giraldo or the Joe Loss or the oh no I mean I I just wanted to be a musician, you know and by this time I wanted to make my living as a musician anyway. Did your parents agree with that? My mother was against it. She thought that music was all very well as a hobby but you should have a proper job.

Ron Goodwin7:29

No.

Ron Goodwin7:35

Oh no, no. I mean I I just

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There was a a theory in the family that you should go into insurance.

Ron Goodwin7:50

Area

Ron Goodwin7:53

Well, I did go into

Ron Goodwin7:55

When

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It was an insurance broker in Northwood, in Middlesex. What were you doing, selling it? No, I was the junior clerk in the office and he overheard me several times on his telephone ringing the other members of the woodchoppers and saying things like you know it's uh St Paul's Hall this evening, uh bring a white shirt and a red tie and your own music stand and one day he said to me You're you're not satisfactory here, Goodwin He said my advice is to go and get a job in music because you'll never be any good for anything else.

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And he was of course he was right, and I wish I could say that I went back and thanked him, but I never did. Was there much of a fuss in the family when you were not altogether voluntarily quit insurance? No, well I rang a friend of mine who'd been taking us out to play for the American forces on the USO engagements of those days and uh

Speaker 28:38

Uh

Presenter8:48

He worked for a music publisher and I asked him if he could get me a job with a publisher. Doing what?

Presenter8:54

Anything, I didn't mind. I just wanted to be in music. And uh, he said, Well, Campbell Canellis need a copyist. So if you'd like to go along and see a gentleman called Nat Lewin, who's their chief arranger, he'll uh

Presenter9:08

Interview, and I got the job there. And I must confess to a certain amount of dishonesty because I pretended I was still working at the insurance company and went and worked at the music publishers for some considerable time until I felt fairly secure about being there. Then I told my mother what I was doing, and since I had a regular job and it didn't appear to be too risky, she was quite happy about it. A word of explanation, Ron. I mean, there you were working for Campbell Conelli. What were you copying and why? Ah, well, in those days, of course, every publisher had an arranging staff. The basis was somewhat different to the way that the music business operates nowadays. I mean, the publisher would have certain songs that he was working on at that particular time.

Presenter9:53

He would persuade or plug the artists to either sing them on the radio or play them with their bands or make records of them and then provide the arrangements for these artists to be able to do that, you see. So there would be an arranging staff making orchestrations of his pieces and I was the lowly copyist who copied the parts from the score for the individual instruments of the orchestra. Well, lowly it may have been, but you had started in the music. Oh, yes, which is where you wanted to be. So let's have your third record.

Ron Goodwin10:19

Oh yes, which is what

Ron Goodwin10:21

It is

Ron Goodwin10:23

Great

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Well, around this time I'd taken a a tremendous interest in orchestration. I was copying other people's orchestrations and trying to find out how they got certain effects.

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And one day I heard a piece of music, it was probably on the radio, I don't know now, but uh it made such an impression on me because

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I suddenly realised the tremendous possibilities of what one could do with an orchestra. It wasn't just a question of voicing things so that people played things in block harmonies and so forth, which was very much the way that things were written for the publishers. You could do all sorts of wonderful things with the individual sections of the orchestra to paint pictures and make wonderful sounds. And I found out that this piece of music was called Daphnis and Chloe by Ravel. And the particular section that I heard that made this tremendous impression on me was the Datebreak sequence. So I'd like to hear that now, please.

Presenter12:20

Daybreak from Maurice Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutois.

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So there you were, Ron, a copyist, copying other people's arrangements. It must have given you quite an insight into how arrangers got their effects. Was anybody helping you in explaining Yes. There was a wonderful man working at the Publishers called Harry J. Stafford, who uh apart from being a good arranger, had a wonderful sense of humour.

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He rather took me under his wing and started to try to explain to me the intricacies of orchestrating music for all different sorts of orchestral combinations, and I learnt a tremendous lot from him. What was the first time that you were commissioned to do an orchestration yourself?

Presenter13:08

I can't remember exactly. After having been at the publishers for some time, I answered an advertisement in one of the musical papers for a young arranger, because I felt I knew enough now to branch out as an arranger myself, and uh

Presenter13:27

When I uh went for the interview I found that it was a company called the Paramore Gold Orchestral Service, which turned out to be Harry Gold, who also ran the Pieces of H, which is a Dixieland jazz band.

Ron Goodwin13:36

Ah yeah.

Presenter13:39

and Norrie Paramore, who later of course became the recording manager for Columbia Records. And they were running a bureau providing orchestrations for the BBC Overseas Recorded Broadcast Service and they auditioned well, got me to do a a small piece of orchestration and I suppose just to see that I knew what I was doing really.

Presenter14:02

and gave me the job, and our main task in those days was a programme called Composer's Cavalcade.

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which went out every week for the forces overseas and it featured composers like Ivanovello, Noel Coward, Catelby, you know, the sort of lighter composers and I found that I was making orchestrations for these programmes on a weekly basis. So I guess apart from one or two things that I might have done whilst I was working as a copyist for other people and I can't remember who they would be now that was the first real arranging and orchestrating assignments that I had. Must have been a great excitement hearing your first arrangement. Great thrill that was.

Ron Goodwin14:47

Oh yes.

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After a short while well, I uh having finished with Paramore Gold, I went to work for another publisher, this time as staff arranger. I was I was a fully fledged arranger now.

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Which meant that I was doing orchestrations for all the BBC orchestras and there were a lot of BBC orchestras in those review orchestra, the variety orchestra, the BBC Dance Orchestra and so forth.

Ron Goodwin15:07

Yes, they were.

Presenter15:13

And Stanley Black uh rather took a shine to my orchestrations and started hiring me to do uh arrangements for programmes that he was doing. And of course that was a great thrill. He did a programme every week called Top Score, which was uh The Top Twenty. Yeah, that's right. Big arrangements of the top twenty and I used to go down to the rehearsal and hear my one played and then rush home to hear it come over on the radio and tremendous thrill.

Ron Goodwin15:28

The top twenty

Presenter15:38

You mentioned Harry Gold just now. At one time you used to play trumpet with Harry Gold's pieces of A. Only as a stand-in. His real trumpet player was called Cyril Ellis and he was a very good jazz player. But he was in the Navy at the time, waiting to be demobbed. So on all the engagements that Cyril couldn't make, I was the trumpet player. But basically I was arranging in their office, you know, and that that was a sort of added string really. If severals at sea get run.

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Right, record number four.

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Well, I guess I'd need to have something to laugh at on this island. There wouldn't be a lot to laugh at just standing there on my own.

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And one of my funniest memories of uh working in gramophone records and so forth I once made a record with Peter Sellars of a ridiculous song called They're Removing Grandpa's Grave to Build a Sewer.

Speaker 316:31

Now what's the use of living like an angel?

Speaker 216:34

Bye.

Speaker 316:36

If when you die your troubles never cease

Speaker 316:41

Course some society gink Wants a pipeline for a sink. They won't let dear old Grandpa rest in peace.

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They're removing Grandpa's grave to build a sewer with Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and an all-star cast.

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Uh you were also doing backing groups for singers? Yes. One of my earliest artists that I accompanied was a young singer called Jimmy Young. Really? Yes, who uh had a big hit with a song called Too Young at that time and uh I did some sessions with Petula Clark and uh

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all many of the singers of the day, and uh it was really a singer who introduced me to George Martin. It was Dick James, who was doubling being a singer with being an exploitation manager for the publishing company I was working for at that time.

Presenter17:33

And he got a contract from George Martin to record some songs and said he'd like this young fellow, Ron Goodwin, to be his arranger and conductor, and that was how I first met George Martin, who later gave me a contract to record with Ron Goodwin and his concert orchestra, which was a major step forward for him.

Ron Goodwin17:36

Yeah.

Presenter17:50

And George Martin had also organised all the early Beatles recordings. Ah yes, that was after all this happened of course. When I first met George would be around about 1950 or 51, I should think. When were you first commissioned to write a film score? It's amazing, Roy, how good fortune is a a necessary part of everyone's career. And I've had a very good share of that, really, in my career. Having met George Martin, he had a secretary at that time called Judy Lockhart Smith.

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And uh she's now Mrs. George Martin, of course, but uh at that time they were just good friends and um

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I wanted to write film music, you know, I was desperately interested in doing it, but I didn't know how to go about it. And I discovered one day that uh Judy's father was actually the chairman of a company called the Film Producers Guild, who made documentary films and advertising films.

Ron Goodwin18:40

Maybe

Presenter18:44

And she said that her father was looking for a young composer who wouldn't be too expensive to do some music for a documentary and would I like to go along and see him. So that was actually the very first film that I made or wrote the music for and that was a documentary about oil refineries, I remember, called The Corriton Achievement. A subject in which you're deeply interested. Wallow in it, yeah. So documentaries led to second features and.

Speaker 219:05

Deeply interested.

Presenter19:12

Then first features of course. Who looks after music? Does the composer work with the producer or director? How does it operate? Usually with the director if he's still around. I mean I have worked on a lot of pictures where the director's gone off to make his next epic and uh he's not available for the music runnings. But normally the director and the film editor and sometimes the producer if he's interested meet and discuss the music and decide where it has to go. Probably the most specific director I ever worked with was Alfred Hitchcock who knew precisely what he wanted, the type of music that he wanted, where he wanted it and what he wanted it to do. Which one did you do if he had? It's a film called Frenzy, which was about a man running around London strangling ladies with his necktie.

Presenter19:58

But of course the opening of the film Hitchcock had shot from a helicopter going up the River Thames.

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and panning down to a man addressing a crowd outside Westminster City Hall, saying we've now cleared up all the pollution in the River Thames and the camera pans past the crowd and you see a body floating in the River Thames. And he wanted the music during that opening sequence to be, as he put it, the type of music that you would write for a tourist film about London.

Presenter20:28

I don't want the audience to know anything nasty's gonna happen, he said, you see. And I think he was right. I didn't at the time, but now I think he was absolutely right. When does he usually start the composer? He he sees a rough cut first, I think. Yes, uh or they probably send the composer a script a few weeks before they're ready with the rough cut and then he goes along and sees the rough cut. Then uh whilst they're trimming it all up and cleaning it all up and so forth, y you go away and think about some themes. Then when they've got the fine cut, then's the time to go into the studio and run the film one reel at a time and decide where the music's going, what it's supposed to be doing and uh

Ron Goodwin20:41

Yeah.

Presenter21:08

how long it shall be and so forth. Then the music editor gives very detailed

Presenter21:14

Q sheets with all the action.

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on in cumulative timings and uh it's then up to the composer to decide which of the things in any given scene he thinks need pointing or accenting or whatever.

Presenter21:27

How many films have you done? It's fifty-nine feature films and about half a dozen documentaries, I should think. Which sort of films do you enjoy? Do you en enjoy crime films or comedy films? I seem to have got stuck with war films and comedies. You know, I've done a lot of war films like The Battle of Britain, uh, Where Eagles Dare, 633 Squadron. Lots of action, lots of dots on the page. That's right, yes. I'm longing for somebody to ask me to do a nice romantic film where one bar will last five seconds.

Ron Goodwin21:47

Hello

Ron Goodwin21:48

Not on the page.

Presenter21:59

Let's have another record. Well, being a film composer I I would like to have a record of some film music and I can't think of a better piece of film music than that written by Miklos Rocher for the film Ben Her and It's the Love Theme.

Presenter22:45

The love theme from the sound track of Ben Hur. Away from the film world, a lot of compositions, a lot of recordings. Yes, it's very strange actually that since nineteen seventy my career's taken a different turn in in a way that I wouldn't have expected and without

Presenter23:03

any inkling that it was going to do that. Um

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I was asked to do a a film harmonic concert in'seventy' by a chap called Sidney Samuelson in aid of the Cinema Technicians Benevolent Fund.

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And there were four conductors. There was Elmer Bernstein, Henry Mancini, Muir Matheson and, to my surprise, myself.

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And uh from then on different orchestras have invited me to go along and do concerts of film music or popular music and so forth. And that seems to have become sort of half my working life now. So I I reckon I spend about half my time now writing and the other half travelling about and giving concerts and so forth. And a lot of recording of course. Yes, not as much now as before. I mean I don't accompany artists anymore, principally because when I did that I was actually the musical director for the Parlophone record label and I've when I became busy with films and my own recordings and compositions and so forth I tended to push that to one side.

Presenter24:07

So I don't uh accompany artists anymore. I do a a a lot of recording with orchestras. I've recently recorded a new suite, the New Zealand suite, with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in their country.

Presenter24:20

And I've got a an album out at the moment with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in this country. So yes, I'm I'm doing quite a lot of recording.

Presenter24:28

Good. We've got to record number six.

Presenter24:31

Well, I think I would feel the heat rather on this trial. I assume it's a tropical island, is it? Yes, the picturesque one is. You must have seen one many films. You must have written some background music for Desert Island at some time or another.

Ron Goodwin24:36

Oh no, yes, of course it is, yes.

Ron Goodwin24:39

Yeah.

Ron Goodwin24:40

I

Ron Goodwin24:43

Oh no, no.

Ron Goodwin24:45

I'm Bernard.

Presenter24:47

Well, in that case, I think I would need to be reminded of a a jolly good English winter with plenty of ice and snow and stuff about. So I've chosen a record called Midnight Sleigh Ride. The piece was actually written by Prokofiev, but I personally prefer the arrangement by the Sauter Finnegan.

Presenter26:04

The Sawter Finnegan Band Midnight Sleigh Ride based on a Little Something by Brokoffia. You talked about uh conducting concerts in New Zealand. You do travel the world a deal now, don't you? Yes, and I enjoy that very much, I must say.

Presenter26:21

I go over to Sweden every year and uh occasionally to Canada, now and then to Australia, every other year to New Zealand. And uh that's apart from touring all round England as well with uh most of our major orchestras and uh I find that most enjoyable. Any any favourite stories about um arriving as a stranger in one of those

Presenter26:41

distant towns and finding yourself in front of a strange orchestra? Not really. I I think musicians everywhere are extremely professional.

Presenter26:50

But of course you do get some funny things happening with audiences.

Presenter26:54

On the last tour that I did in New Zealand, we finished the tour in Auckland, and there was a chap sitting in the the front row, and this was with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

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and I was introducing the thing with a few little light hearted remarks, and this chap was roaring with laughter at everything I said. You know, it was practically a case of good evening, every one. Ha ha ha ha from this chap And after the concert I was signing autographs outside, and he came up with his wife, and I said, Well,

Presenter27:25

You appear to have enjoyed the concert this evening and his wife said, Well, I didn't really know whether to bring him. She said, He's never been to a concert before. And he said, Well, I'm coming again. He said, I've had a marvellous time to night, you know, and the thought crossed my mind that the next conductor out there is Sir Charles Groves.

Presenter27:42

And this chap's going to be sitting in the front row waiting for the jokes to start, you know You'd better warn Sir Charles.

Presenter27:53

Record number seven.

Presenter27:55

Well, being a West Country man, I would like to be reminded of the West Country of England on this desert island, and I can't think of a record that would do that better than Bax's Tintagl. So may we have that one, please.

Presenter28:59

The opening of Tintagel by Arnold Bax, the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbie Raleigh.

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How do you think you'd be as a castaway on this desert island? Could you look after yourself? Well, I would have a go. I'm I'm not really a very practical person, but uh I've had a wonderful example. Uh in my house, which is really two cottages converted into a house, uh we had a wonderful chap called Arthur doing all the building and converting.

Presenter29:27

And Arthur worked on the theory that there's nothing that you can't do.

Presenter29:32

I mean, I remember when we moved in there, the removal men said, Oh, I'm sorry, we can't get the bed up those stairs, it's too narrow.

Presenter29:40

So Arthur said, What? He said, Hang on and he rushed out and came in with a huge saw and sawed the bed in half, you see. They took it upstairs and then he put it back together again. So having had the example of Arthur, I I do believe that nothing is impossible and I'll have a go at it, but of course I wouldn't have his expertise. Well, you've got some ideas. Your last record.

Presenter30:02

Well, I guess I'd like to sort of remember the good old days whilst I was on this island and uh

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Part of the enjoyment of life, a large part of the enjoyment of life for me is going around and giving the concerts that we do.

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And an encore that we often play on concerts is a piece called The Peanut Bendor.

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And it's an arrangement that I did, borrowing a lot, shall we say, from the Stankenton arrangement. So I think I'd like to hear the original Stankenton arrangement of the Peanut Bendor.

Presenter31:24

A Peanut Vendor by the Stan Kenton Orchestra. If you could take just one of the eight discs you played, which would it be?

Presenter31:31

A very difficult Roy actually, but I think it would be Tintagl, because of its uh associations with the West Country.

Presenter31:38

And one luxury to take with you, one object of no practical use. Well, I've thought about this one a little bit too, and I thought of all sorts of different things, but I think really, if it's possible, could I have a musical instrument of some kind? Yes, of course. Well, having been a brass player and got some inkling of uh how to manage a brass instrument, I think I should go to the other end of the range from the one that I've actually played in the past. And I think I'll choose the tuba. Well, that's got a lot of brass in it, hasn't it? And one book, apart from the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, which are already provided. Well, the book I've chosen, a very small book actually. It's one that I carry with me most of the time when I'm on tour or whatever.

Presenter32:23

And it's a little book called The Prophet by a Lebanese author called Khalil Gibram.

Presenter32:29

And it's a book that I find has got a lot of the kind of philosophy that helps me. And it fits into a pocket anyway. And I can usually find something in that book that relates to my current problems or my imagined problems. And I think I'd like to have that one. The Prophet by Give me the author again. Khalil Ghibran. You shall have it, handsomely bound. And thank you, Ron Goodwin, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you very much, Roy. Goodbye, everyone.

Ron Goodwin33:05

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.