Friday, December 17, 2010

ALAN HAWKSHAW - MO'HAWK





















http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?al37z4lwr2571ee

Track 1 - Senor Thump
Track 2 - Beat Me 'Til I'm Blue
Track 3 - Move Move Move
Track 4 - Girl At The Top
Track 5 - Hastle
Track 6 - The Millionairess
Track 7 - Beat Boutique
Track 8 - Picadilly Night Ride
Track 9 - Dr.Jekyll And Hyde Park
Track 10 - Sweet Motion
Track 11 - Blue Note
Track 12 - Girl In A Sportscar
Track 13 - Dave Allen At Large
Track 14 - Raver
Track 15 - Drive On
Track 16 - Action Man
Track 17 - Rocky Mountain Roundabout
Track 18 - Powerboat
Track 19 - Rumplestilskin
Track 20 - Hawkwind And Fire

A spectacular selection of tracks from the heyday of library music, the Hawk' stands out amongst his peers because not only was he a brilliant composer but he was also a very talented organ player (examples of this are rife throughout the compilation). Here is some background info care of Wikipedia...

"In the 1960s, he was a member of rock and roll group Emile Ford and the Checkmates. He also formed the Mohawks band and Rumplestiltskin with some session musicians. At that time Hawkshaw was an exponent of the Hammond organ, heard in the Mohawks' music, and also on the UK recording of the musical Hair.[2]

Hawkshaw was also featured playing with David Bowie on the Bowie at the Beeb album, in a performance recorded for the "John Peel in Top Gear" show on May 13, 1968, in which he played a solo on "In The Heat Of The Morning".

In the 1970s, he played in The Shadows; he worked for Olivia Newton-John, Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg as a musical director, arranger and pianist and was a keyboard player for Cliff Richard. One of this best-known compositions is "Blarney Stoned" (originally recorded for KPM in 1969 under the title "Studio 69") which was used as the theme tune for Dave Allen's television shows The Dave Allen Show and Dave Allen At Large.[3] He composed all the music for the Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World series. Hawkshaw also composed 'Best Endeavours', which has been the theme for Channel 4 News since 1982, and Chicken Man, which was used as the theme for Grange Hill from its start in 1978 until 1989, and revived for the final series of Grange Hill in 2008. Another recording of Chicken Man was used contemporaneously with the original Grange Hill version for the ITV quiz show Give Us A Clue. The Countdown "Chimes" jingle used on Channel 4's Countdown game show was also composed by Hawkshaw. He also performed the music The Night Rider (the theme for Cadbury's Milk Tray adverts.)

In the United States, he also scored a number 1 single on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart with "Here Comes That Sound Again", as part of Love De-Luxe With Hawkshaw's Discophonia in 1979."

Hawkshaw's music has been sampled by such hip-hop luminaries as De La Soul, KRS-One, DJ Shadow and Eric B & Rakim and it's easy to hear why when you listen to this amazing collection. Some of the tracks have appeared on the Sound Gallery and Blow Up compilations and "Senor Thump" can be found elsewhere but the majority of the songs have spent decades waiting to be rediscovered and given the true recognition they deserve. 20 nuggets of pure gold!!!

2 comments:

Keith said...

Alan Hawkshaw!Some great stuff here,I look forward to your posts,it's like stumbling across gold nuggets :-)

Mr. Craig said...

Thanks Keith, I'm getting set to step things up a notch in 2011 so I've been holding off on a lot of cool stuff. Keep your ears peeled...