Johnny Douglas (conductor)

Johnny Douglas (19 June 1920 – 20 April 2003) was an English composer, musical director and string arranger, perhaps best known for his work in the easy listening genre. He recorded over 500 tracks for DECCA and over 80 albums for RCA, and wrote the soundtrack to the 1971 film The Railway Children, plus 37 other feature films.

In the 1980s, he also composed and conducted music for many television series, including the children's TV animation series Spider-Man, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Dungeons & Dragons, The Incredible Hulk, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero and The Transformers.

Douglas was born in Hackney, London, England, on 19 June 1920, the eldest of two sons of John and May Douglas. The family moved to Bermondsey where his mother was a housewife and his father held a secretarial position until he became Alderman of West Bermondsey Council.

One of his earliest recollections was playing gramophone records on a machine that produced sound via a large green horn. By associating the music he heard with the colour and design of the labels on the 10” heavy and sometimes single sided records, he learned how to select the tune he wanted to hear. At 2½, his parents listened, not believing their own ears, when he played on the piano, one finger fashion, one of the popular tunes of the day that he had heard on one of his father’s records. He remembered playing "The Washington Post" that he learned from a record, which he felt sure was a green labelled Regal Zonophone.

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