De Wolfe Music
Encyclopedia
De Wolfe Music is the originator of what has become known as production music
as it was established in 1909 and began its recorded library in 1927 with the advent of 'Talkies'. The library consists of over 80,000 tracks, all pre-cleared for licensing and synchronisation. They have been used in thousands of productions including Monty Python
, Emmanuelle
, Dawn of the Dead, American Gangster and Doctor Who
. Well known theme tunes include Van der Valk
and Roobarb and Custard. De Wolfe built and owns Angel Recording Studios, a recording and mixing complex situated at The Angel, Islington. Artists who have recorded there in recent years include Adele
, Snow Patrol
, Cee Lo Green, Labrinth
, George Fenton
(BAFTA and EMMY winner for his scores to the BBC’s ‘The Blue Planet
’ and ‘Planet Earth
’), Ian Brown
, Elbow
, The Doves, The Feeling
and Kaiser Chiefs
. Its specially composed department is called Inter Angel. De Wolfe is still a family run company.
, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
, Death Wish
, Brokeback Mountain
, Dawn of the Dead, American Gangster, Eastenders
, Kavanagh QC
, The Royle Family
, Monty Python's Flying Circus
, Great British Journeys, Spitting Image
and Top Gear.
It has provided the hook for advertising campaigns and in recent years has been sampled by the likes of Mark Ronson
and Lily Allen
, Peshay, Ja Rule
, Gorillaz
, Unkle
and Beyoncé
. Countless radio programmes have used De Wolfe for signature tunes, background music, talk show themes, dramatic moments, chart show countdowns and commercials.
The company’s founder, Meyer de Wolfe, left Holland just after the turn of the 20th Century - a graduate of the Dutch Royal Conservatoire of Music
, Meyer de Wolfe came to London to work as a musical director, composer, musician, arranger and conductor with the Provincial Cinematograph Theatres Limited. He established De Wolfe Music in 1909 and was responsible for selecting the accompaniment to movies at a time when soundtracks were simply printed as sheet music and played live by musicians sitting inside the late-Edwardian Cinemas, or ‘Kinematograph theatres’ as they were known then. It was in these early years that Meyer de Wolfe offered a sheet music library of original compositions to accompany silent films; he personally selected scores for early silent epics like D. W. Griffith
's' The Dishonoured Medal (1914), and Kenean Buel
’s production of Rider Haggard’s She (1915), as well as the original Prisoner of Zenda for Adolph Zukor
, one of the eventual founders of Paramount Pictures
and whose Famous Players Film Company
produced an impressive 140 or so silent films between 1912 and 1919.
Meyer de Wolfe’s scores were often produced in collaboration with an extraordinary circle of notable friends from the close-knit orchestral community in London, made up of some of the finest talent of the era, including conductor Sir Landon Ronald, violinist and opera conductor Sir Eugene Goossen, composer Giuseppe Becce and violinist Mantovani
, father of the conductor Annunzio Mantovani. De Wolfe Music, as it became known, also encompassed many other related activities such as exclusively importing ‘Wurlitzer
’ organs and supplying gut strings for violins, violas, cellos and basses. It was even involved in the manufacture of the Standadt electric organ in Holland which was imported into the UK.
Examples of early compositions from that time include pieces like Keep Your Face To The Sunshine (1926) by Arthur Crocker, Odiele, performed by Ivor Novello
from the film The Rat (1926) and Policeman’s Holiday from 1931 by the prolific and popular composer Montague Ewing. There was also Autumn Serenade and Mia Bella by Giuseppe Becce, who scored the classic Frankenstein
in 1931, as well as many of Meyer de Wolfe’s own compositions. Among the film scores completed during the era were Horace Shepherd’s compositions for The Prince and the Maid (1925) and The Iron Horse (1924), an early western directed by John Ford
, as well as the score for Two White Arms (1932), starring the debonair Adolphe Menjou
, nine-times Best Dressed Man in America and idol of the 1930s sartorial opulence. De Wolfe Music went on to score Clothes and the Woman (1937) directed by Albert de Courville, Silver Blaze (1937), based on the famous Sherlock Holmes
story by Sir Conan-Doyle and The Vicar of Bray (1937) which starred Stanley Holloway
and included a score by famed composer Harry Baynton-Power.
During the 1930s, De Wolfe created soundtracks for newsreels that were shown in cinemas in between the feature films and B-movies of the day. Working closely with Pathé
, British Movietone News and British Gaumont Cinemas, De Wolfe provided scores for many thousands of newsreels right across Europe. This would continue during the Second World War and well into the sixties. In the meantime, Meyer’s son, James de Wolfe, joined the company, initially starting in 1940, just after war had begun. James served with the RAF from 1942 to 1947 then upon his return spent much of the fifties and sixties travelling in order to establish the company as an international business. At that time De Wolfe Music were producing scores for popular features like 1946’s Curse of The Wraydons and Roy Boulting’s 1947 political drama Fame is the Spur starring Michael Redgrave, the first soundtrack composed by John Wooldridge
, who had flown as one of the RAF Dambusters
during the war. John Wooldridge also composed the music for the film Edward My Son (1948) which starred Spencer Tracy
, while another of De Wolfe’s composers, Frank Spencer, scored Mrs. Christopher (1950) and Fall of the House of Usher (1952).
named Corelli and Jacobs laid the foundations for a new venture in The States. The proliferation of television sets during the fifties also added a whole new market for De Wolfe’s music and with it a unique piece of TV history. The company provided the music for the U.K.’s first ever television commercial, a minute long advertisement for Gibbs Toothpaste in September 1955. Since then many advertising commercials and campaigns have been broadcast featuring either De Wolfe library tracks or specially composed pieces. These vary from the famous British Airways
‘World’s Favourite Airline’ and Audi Quattro
ads of the eighties, to recent commercials for Lucozade, Adidas, Chrysler and the Britannia Building Society. Meanwhile, a quite different type of information was also flourishing in the UK. Out of the 1940s and into the 50s music was provided and scored for a number of training films. Clients included The Ministry of Information, National Coal Board, British Rail and the Armed Forces; while topics covered everything from road safety to what to do in the event of a nuclear attack.
The library began distributing 10” vinyl records in 1962 and soon after produced the now collectible 12” records, complete with their trademark experimental cover designs by Rolph Webster and award-winning Canadian artist Nick Bantock
. This era also saw the company providing the scores for the original black and white Tintin series and being awarded an Ivor Novello Award for the theme to the TV series The Power Game starring Patrick Wymark
. Music was also provided for classic episodes of Dr. Who, while in the ‘70s De Wolfe scored The Sweeney
, Monty Python's Flying Circus
and cartoon theme tunes for Roobarb & Custard and Henry's Cat
. Eye Level, the theme music for the television detective series Van Der Valk
, became a million-selling number one single in 1973. To composer Jack Trombey’s surprise, Eye Level topped the charts for six weeks and saw Simon Park conducting his Orchestra week after week on Top Of The Pops alongside glam superstars Wizzard
and The Sweet. It was the first TV theme ever to hit Number One, and proved so popular the Simon Park Orchestra
actually outsold The Beatles
in the UK for a whole week! Much of De Wolfe’s music from that era has since become cult among record collectors and music enthusiasts all over the world.
Many more obscure De Wolfe scores lurk in the thousands of cult classic Kung Fu movies by Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers, including The Mighty Peking Man
from 1976 and 1979’s Return to the 36th Chamber
, as well as many popular TV shows from the seventies like Miss Jones and Son and Man About the House
. De Wolfe’s music also graces some of the highly popular and relentlessly bawdy British comedies like Zeta One, Eskimo Nell and Adventures of a Taxi Driver
, but there is no doubt the best known work from the end of the seventies can be found in the Monty Python
surreal classics Time Bandits
, The Holy Grail, The Meaning of Life, Jabberwocky
and Life of Brian.
The seventies saw De Wolfe expanding its library with the addition of The Rouge catalogue in 1975, run by Rosalind de Wolfe, wife of James de Wolfe and one of the company’s directors. This popular catalogue itself recently expanded with the new Club Rouge and a Jazz series, both of which have been very successful. The roster of companies under the De Wolfe umbrella currently includes Commercial Breaks, the De Wolfe Jazz label and a Classical RPO series which features pieces recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
. Many of the very earliest De Wolfe compositions are still available in its Millennium series, while the company also owns the Classic Hudson label, originally acquired in the thirties to release 78’s of popular dance music, and which now exists as a niche and eclectic production music library. Sylvester Music Co Limited has also been part of De Wolfe since the early days, originally existing as a song sheet publisher and whose subsequent LPs included talents like jazz icon Martial Solal
and film score composer Vladimir Cosma
. One of the newer additions to the De Wolfe Group has been the sound effects department, dedicated to designing and supplying effects for film, TV and games productions. De Wolfe SFX is run by Janine de Wolfe, James de Wolfe’s daughter.
The third generation of the De Wolfe family started at the company in 1978. Meyer de Wolfe’s grandson, Warren de Wolfe, began in the Transfer and Editing department at the company’s old premises in Wardour Street
. Warren joined at a time when the company was developing its own Angel Studios complex in Islington in 1979. Recording began in 1982 and by 1983 Angel was already attracting acts like The Cure
and Siouxsie and the Banshees, who hired the studio commercially. After opening a third studio at the complex in 1987, the premises developed further into a significant business for De Wolfe, not only allowing its composers access to a world class studio, but also supplying a facility for today’s leading artists. Ian Brown
, Goldfrapp
, Kaiser Chiefs
, Funeral for a Friend
, Elbow
, The Feeling
and Karl Jenkins
(for his acclaimed Adiemus
project) are amongst those to have recorded there, while most famously, and fittingly, it was also where Robbie Williams
recorded parts for his worldwide smash hit Angels.
The Angel Studio’s expansive orchestra room also ensures its popularity among film score composers like Eric Serra
who scored Léon
and the James Bond film GoldenEye
there. George Fenton
used the studio to record his award-winning scores for natural history shows The Blue Planet
and Planet Earth
, while other projects have included Alex Heffes
for Touching The Void
, Maury Weston for Nine (film)
, Ann Dudley for The Full Monty
and Craig Armstrong, who scored Moulin Rouge!
and Romeo + Juliet. Among Angel Studios impressive roster of other blockbusting soundtracks are classics like The English Patient
(1996), The Crying Game
(1992), Buster
(1988), Memphis Belle
(1990), Pride and Prejudice
(2005) and The Lion King
(1994). In order to maximise the potential of Angel Studios as a resource for De Wolfe’s bespoke compositions, the company also operates a separate department. Inter Angel enables De Wolfe clients, Angel Studios and the roster of composers to work to highly specific briefs. In recent years these have included the composition of music, themes, beds and idents for a range of high profile, mainstream television programmes including The Weakest Link
, Richard & Judy
, The Price Is Right
, Saturday Kitchen
, House Doctor, How to Cheat at Cooking and Fame Academy
. When ITV proposed a new arrangement for classic TV theme The Bill
, the people they entrusted were Inter Angel.
Since the 1980s De Wolfe has been scoring and sourcing music for some of the best loved television programs. Minder
, Max Headroom
, Spitting Image
, Jupiter Moon
and the US version of Jamaica Inn
with Jane Seymour
were all completed in a decade where fast-developing digital technologies also came to the fore, the most significant being the evolution of the Compact Disc
. This provided yet another market leading moment for De Wolfe – the world’s first digital production music library. Released in 1985, it consisted of a series of 6 CDs and consequently led to De Wolfe ending the production of its vinyl series in 1988. Today, of course, the libraries are more accessible than ever, with clients able to obtain the whole library on customised USB hard drives or download tracks in broadcast quality format directly from www.searchdewolfe.com.
The combination of the library’s cult status among record collectors and the increased availability of sampling since the eighties has also meant that many De Wolfe tracks appear regularly on commercial releases by internationally renowned artists. Beyoncé used a track for her song Woman Like Me from the 2006 film The Pink Panther
, and Gorillaz
used the intro from Dawn of the Dead to start their Demon Days album. However it’s in the Hip-Hop genre that De Wolfe samples are most prevalent, appearing on albums by the likes of Fat Joe
, Jay-Z
, Cam’Ron, Stereo MC’s, Mos Def
, Ric-A-Che, The Nextmen
, among others.
Having reached its centenary year in 2009, De Wolfe continues as both a family run company and an industry leader, with James de Wolfe as Chairman, Warren de Wolfe as Managing Director and Rosalind de Wolfe as Director along with senior members of staff, Alan Howe, Stephen Rosie, Frank Barretta and Chris Clarke, each of whom has been with the company more than 16 years. The company is the world’s largest independent production music library, with offices and agents based in forty countries from USA to Russia, and as far flung as South Africa, Australia and Japan. The company is represented in seven countries by EMI
, and boasts an ever-expanding roster of composers. De Wolfe’s roll call includes some of the UK’s leading talents, both past and present: Jack Trombey, Simon Park, Tim Souster
, Andy Quin, Alex Heffes
, Stanley Myers
, Stephane Grappelli
, John Altman
, Stanley Black, David Bradnum, Frank Mcdonald and Chris Rae, Paul Lawler, Frederic Talgorn
, York Bowen, Johnny Hawksworth
, Steve Sidwell, Ivor Slaney
, Reg Tilsley, Ronald Binge
, David Kelly, Hampton Hawes, Basil Kirchin
, Alan Parker, Roger Webb, Ivor Novello
, Colin Kiddy, Howie, David Hubbard, Nigel Mullaney, Danny Davies, Jonathan Jowett, Simon Stewart, Troy Banarzi
, Ross Hardy, John Leach, Paul Leonard-Morgan
, Terry Keating, Ian Boddy
, Paul Lewis
, Karl Jenkins
, Terry Gadsden, Hermann Langschwert and Nick Ingman
.
Selected credits include: Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (film)
; Brokeback Mountain
; Grindhouse
; Michael Moore’s Sicko; The Prestige
; Adventureland (film)
; Octopussy
; Monty Python and the Holy Grail
; The Fourth Protocol
; The Cider House Rules
; Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas; The Living Daylights
and the classic Emmanuelle
. Similarly, De Wolfe music features on countless TV productions including Spitting Image
; Coronation Street
; Inspector Morse
; Neighbours
; kids favourite Balamory
; Great British Journeys, Grumpy Old Men
; Poirot; Churchill’s Bodyguard and Crimes and Trials of the 20th Century. All have been enhanced by production music from De Wolfe’s huge library, along with vast numbers of TV commercials, computer games and documentaries. Similarly, the corporate market has also benefited, from its early origins in those information movies of the 50s, through slide projectors to “the audio visual show” and then video. Nowadays the corporate business represents a vast opportunity as it grows and thrives in an ever expanding digital format both on screen and on line.
With a hundred years of history to celebrate, De Wolfe can not only look on its past with pride but also to its future with confidence. By continually tracking the very latest musical trends and technologies, De Wolfe is at the forefront of today’s ever-changing media service industry. An international market leader with the service values of a family independent, the present day company is exactly how Meyer de Wolfe would have wanted.
Production music
Production music is the name given to recorded music produced and owned by production music libraries and licensed to customers for use in film, television, radio and other media.-Introduction:...
as it was established in 1909 and began its recorded library in 1927 with the advent of 'Talkies'. The library consists of over 80,000 tracks, all pre-cleared for licensing and synchronisation. They have been used in thousands of productions including Monty Python
Monty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
, Emmanuelle
Emmanuelle
Emmanuelle is the lead character in a series of French softcore erotic movies based on a character created by Emmanuelle Arsan in the novel Emmanuelle...
, Dawn of the Dead, American Gangster and Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
. Well known theme tunes include Van der Valk
Van der Valk
Van der Valk is a British television series that was produced by Thames Television for the ITV network. It starred Barry Foster in the title role as Dutch detective Commissaris "Piet" van der Valk...
and Roobarb and Custard. De Wolfe built and owns Angel Recording Studios, a recording and mixing complex situated at The Angel, Islington. Artists who have recorded there in recent years include Adele
Adele
Adele is a female given name of European origin used in English, French, German and Italian with a meaning of noble, kind, and tender...
, Snow Patrol
Snow Patrol
Snow Patrol are an alternative rock band from Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. Formed at the University of Dundee in 1994 as an indie rock band, the band is now based in Glasgow...
, Cee Lo Green, Labrinth
Labrinth
Timothy McKenzie , better known by his stage name Labrinth, is an English singer-songwriter and record producer. McKenzie is signed to Simon Cowell's record label Syco, becoming the first non-talent show signing in six years...
, George Fenton
George Fenton
George Fenton is a British composer best known for his work writing film scores and music for television, although he also writes music for the theatre. His real name is George Howe but he is better known by his pseudonym of George Fenton.-Selected film and television credits:Fenton has composed...
(BAFTA and EMMY winner for his scores to the BBC’s ‘The Blue Planet
The Blue Planet
The Blue Planet is a BBC nature documentary series narrated by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the UK from 12 September 2001.Described as "the first ever comprehensive series on the natural history of the world's oceans", each of the eight 50-minute episodes examines a different aspect of...
’ and ‘Planet Earth
Planet Earth (TV series)
Planet Earth is a 2006 television series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit. Five years in the making, it was the most expensive nature documentary series ever commissioned by the BBC, and also the first to be filmed in high definition...
’), Ian Brown
Ian Brown
Ian George Brown is an English musician, best known as the lead singer of the alternative rock band The Stone Roses, which broke up in 1996 but are confirmed to reunite in 2012. Since the break-up of the Stone Roses he has pursued a solo career...
, Elbow
Elbow (band)
Elbow are an English rock band. They have played together since 1990 and recorded five studio albums, the most recent of which is Build a Rocket Boys!, released in March 2011...
, The Doves, The Feeling
The Feeling
The Feeling are a BRIT award-nominated English pop band from West Sussex and London. The band categorise their music as "pop".Following a limited release of their first single "Fill My Little World" in late 2005, the band entered the UK Singles Chart at #7 with their first full release "Sewn" in...
and Kaiser Chiefs
Kaiser Chiefs
Kaiser Chiefs are an English indie rock band from Leeds who formed in 1996. They were named after the South African football club Kaizer Chiefs....
. Its specially composed department is called Inter Angel. De Wolfe is still a family run company.
History
De Wolfe Music Publishers have the longest running independent film and television music library resource in the world. Their music can be heard in, amongst others, The Simpsons MovieThe Simpsons Movie
The Simpsons Movie is a 2007 American animated comedy film based on the animated television series The Simpsons. The film was directed by David Silverman, and stars the regular television cast of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Tress...
, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (film)
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll is a 2010 biopic of Ian Dury, starring Andy Serkis as Dury. The film follows Dury's rise to fame and documents his personal battle with the disability caused by having contracted polio during childhood. The effect that his disability and his lifestyle have upon his...
, Death Wish
Death Wish
Death Wish is a 1972 novel by Brian Garfield.-Plot:Paul Benjamin is a CPA in New York and lifelong liberal. However, his staid life is overturned when his daughter, Carol, and spouse, Esther, are attacked by muggers. His wife does not survive the attack, and his traumatized daughter is left in a...
, Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee. It is a film adaptation of the 1997 short story of the same name by Annie Proulx with the screenplay written by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry...
, Dawn of the Dead, American Gangster, Eastenders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
, Kavanagh QC
Kavanagh QC
Kavanagh QC is a British television series made by Carlton Television for ITV between 1995 and 2001. It has been shown on ITV3 as recently as August 2011; series 1–6 are available on Region 2 DVDs....
, The Royle Family
The Royle Family
The Royle Family is a popular, BAFTA award-winning television comedy drama produced by Granada Television for the BBC, which ran for three series between 1998 and 2000, and specials from 2006 onwards...
, Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a BBC TV sketch comedy series. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines...
, Great British Journeys, Spitting Image
Spitting Image
Spitting Image is a British satirical puppet show that aired on the ITV network from 1984 to 1996. It was produced by Spitting Image Productions for Central Television. The series was nominated for 10 BAFTA Awards, winning one for editing in 1989....
and Top Gear.
It has provided the hook for advertising campaigns and in recent years has been sampled by the likes of Mark Ronson
Mark Ronson
Mark Daniel Ronson is an English DJ, guitarist, music producer, artist and co-founder of Allido Records. He currently works with his band under the music alias of Mark Ronson & The Business Intl....
and Lily Allen
Lily Allen
Lily Rose Beatrice Cooper , better known as Lily Allen, is an English recording artist and fashion designer. She is the daughter of actor and musician Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen. In her teenage years, her musical tastes evolved from glam rock to alternative...
, Peshay, Ja Rule
Ja Rule
Jeffrey Atkins , better known by his stage name Ja Rule, is an American rapper, singer, and actor.Born in Hollis, Queens, he began his career in the group Cash Money Click and debuted in 1999 with Venni Vetti Vecci and its single "Holla Holla"...
, Gorillaz
Gorillaz
Gorillaz is an English musical project created in 1998 by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. This project consists of Gorillaz music itself and an extensive fictional universe depicting a "virtual band" of cartoon characters...
, Unkle
UNKLE
Unkle are a British musical outfit founded in 1994 by school friends James Lavelle and Tim Goldsworthy. Originally categorized as trip-hop, the group once included producer DJ Shadow and have employed a variety of guest artists and producers.-First incarnation :Lavelle and Goldsworthy were joined...
and Beyoncé
Beyoncé Knowles
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles , often known simply as Beyoncé, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she enrolled in various performing arts schools and was first exposed to singing and dancing competitions as a child...
. Countless radio programmes have used De Wolfe for signature tunes, background music, talk show themes, dramatic moments, chart show countdowns and commercials.
The company’s founder, Meyer de Wolfe, left Holland just after the turn of the 20th Century - a graduate of the Dutch Royal Conservatoire of Music
Royal Conservatory of The Hague
The Royal Conservatory of The Hague is a conservatorium of music, providing higher education in music and dance, it is located in The Hague, Netherlands.-The Conservatory:...
, Meyer de Wolfe came to London to work as a musical director, composer, musician, arranger and conductor with the Provincial Cinematograph Theatres Limited. He established De Wolfe Music in 1909 and was responsible for selecting the accompaniment to movies at a time when soundtracks were simply printed as sheet music and played live by musicians sitting inside the late-Edwardian Cinemas, or ‘Kinematograph theatres’ as they were known then. It was in these early years that Meyer de Wolfe offered a sheet music library of original compositions to accompany silent films; he personally selected scores for early silent epics like D. W. Griffith
D. W. Griffith
David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
's' The Dishonoured Medal (1914), and Kenean Buel
Kenean Buel
Kenean J. Buel was an American film director.Born in Kentucky, he became involved in theatre work and eventually made his way to New York City where he was hired by the Kalem Company in 1908 as a film director under the tutelage of Sidney Olcott...
’s production of Rider Haggard’s She (1915), as well as the original Prisoner of Zenda for Adolph Zukor
Adolph Zukor
Adolph Zukor , born Adolph Cukor, was a film mogul and founder of Paramount Pictures.-Early life:...
, one of the eventual founders of Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
and whose Famous Players Film Company
Famous Players Film Company
The Famous Players Film Company was founded in 1912 by Adolph Zukor in partnership with the Frohman brothers, the powerful New York City theatre impresarios. The company advertised "Famous Players in Famous Plays" and its first release was the French film Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth starring...
produced an impressive 140 or so silent films between 1912 and 1919.
Meyer de Wolfe’s scores were often produced in collaboration with an extraordinary circle of notable friends from the close-knit orchestral community in London, made up of some of the finest talent of the era, including conductor Sir Landon Ronald, violinist and opera conductor Sir Eugene Goossen, composer Giuseppe Becce and violinist Mantovani
Mantovani
Annunzio Paolo Mantovani known as Mantovani, was an Anglo-Italian conductor and light orchestra-styled entertainer with a cascading strings musical signature. The book British Hit Singles & Albums states that he was "Britain's most successful album act before The Beatles .....
, father of the conductor Annunzio Mantovani. De Wolfe Music, as it became known, also encompassed many other related activities such as exclusively importing ‘Wurlitzer
Wurlitzer
The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to simply as Wurlitzer, was an American company that produced stringed instruments, woodwinds, brass instruments, theatre organs, band organs, orchestrions, electronic organs, electric pianos and jukeboxes....
’ organs and supplying gut strings for violins, violas, cellos and basses. It was even involved in the manufacture of the Standadt electric organ in Holland which was imported into the UK.
1927
In 1927, following the advent of sound in movies, De Wolfe Music began recording with the ‘sound-on-disc’ technique and ‘sound-on-film’ onto 35mm on highly flammable nitrate film, which was known to explode if improperly stored, as the company discovered when a film which had deteriorated into powder ignited and blew out its Wardour Street basement. To prevent this much of the stored music was later copied onto ¼” tape. Indeed, as technologies have changed, many of the early compositions have come on quite a journey, transferring to vinyl from 1962, CD from 1985 and currently existing digitally on hard drives and as downloadable files on the internet.Examples of early compositions from that time include pieces like Keep Your Face To The Sunshine (1926) by Arthur Crocker, Odiele, performed by Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello
David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...
from the film The Rat (1926) and Policeman’s Holiday from 1931 by the prolific and popular composer Montague Ewing. There was also Autumn Serenade and Mia Bella by Giuseppe Becce, who scored the classic Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
in 1931, as well as many of Meyer de Wolfe’s own compositions. Among the film scores completed during the era were Horace Shepherd’s compositions for The Prince and the Maid (1925) and The Iron Horse (1924), an early western directed by John Ford
John Ford
John Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
, as well as the score for Two White Arms (1932), starring the debonair Adolphe Menjou
Adolphe Menjou
Adolphe Jean Menjou was an American actor. His career spanned both silent films and talkies, appearing in such films as The Sheik, A Woman of Paris, Morocco, and A Star is Born...
, nine-times Best Dressed Man in America and idol of the 1930s sartorial opulence. De Wolfe Music went on to score Clothes and the Woman (1937) directed by Albert de Courville, Silver Blaze (1937), based on the famous Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
story by Sir Conan-Doyle and The Vicar of Bray (1937) which starred Stanley Holloway
Stanley Holloway
Stanley Augustus Holloway, OBE was an English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles on stage and screen, especially that of Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady...
and included a score by famed composer Harry Baynton-Power.
During the 1930s, De Wolfe created soundtracks for newsreels that were shown in cinemas in between the feature films and B-movies of the day. Working closely with Pathé
Pathé
Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...
, British Movietone News and British Gaumont Cinemas, De Wolfe provided scores for many thousands of newsreels right across Europe. This would continue during the Second World War and well into the sixties. In the meantime, Meyer’s son, James de Wolfe, joined the company, initially starting in 1940, just after war had begun. James served with the RAF from 1942 to 1947 then upon his return spent much of the fifties and sixties travelling in order to establish the company as an international business. At that time De Wolfe Music were producing scores for popular features like 1946’s Curse of The Wraydons and Roy Boulting’s 1947 political drama Fame is the Spur starring Michael Redgrave, the first soundtrack composed by John Wooldridge
John Wooldridge
Wing Commander John De Lacy Wooldridge, DSO, DFC and Bar, DFM, was a British film composer.- Early life :Wooldridge was born in Yokohama, Japan and was educated at St Paul's School, London...
, who had flown as one of the RAF Dambusters
No. 617 Squadron RAF
No. 617 Squadron is a Royal Air Force aircraft squadron based at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland. It currently operates the Tornado GR4 in the ground attack and reconnaissance role...
during the war. John Wooldridge also composed the music for the film Edward My Son (1948) which starred Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
, while another of De Wolfe’s composers, Frank Spencer, scored Mrs. Christopher (1950) and Fall of the House of Usher (1952).
1940
In the late 1940s, the company took steps to expand into North America, where a partnership with two film editors from Paramount PicturesParamount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
named Corelli and Jacobs laid the foundations for a new venture in The States. The proliferation of television sets during the fifties also added a whole new market for De Wolfe’s music and with it a unique piece of TV history. The company provided the music for the U.K.’s first ever television commercial, a minute long advertisement for Gibbs Toothpaste in September 1955. Since then many advertising commercials and campaigns have been broadcast featuring either De Wolfe library tracks or specially composed pieces. These vary from the famous British Airways
British Airways
British Airways is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom, based in Waterside, near its main hub at London Heathrow Airport. British Airways is the largest airline in the UK based on fleet size, international flights and international destinations...
‘World’s Favourite Airline’ and Audi Quattro
Audi Quattro
The Audi Quattro is a road and rally car, produced by the German automobile manufacturer Audi, now part of the Volkswagen Group. It was first shown at the 1980 Geneva Motor Show on 3 March.The word quattro is derived from the Italian word for "four"...
ads of the eighties, to recent commercials for Lucozade, Adidas, Chrysler and the Britannia Building Society. Meanwhile, a quite different type of information was also flourishing in the UK. Out of the 1940s and into the 50s music was provided and scored for a number of training films. Clients included The Ministry of Information, National Coal Board, British Rail and the Armed Forces; while topics covered everything from road safety to what to do in the event of a nuclear attack.
1960
The library began distributing 10” vinyl records in 1962 and soon after produced the now collectible 12” records, complete with their trademark experimental cover designs by Rolph Webster and award-winning Canadian artist Nick Bantock
Nick Bantock
Nick Bantock is a British artist and author based in Saltspring Island, British Columbia. Bantock is well-known for his popular series, The Griffin and Sabine Trilogy, and for making collage popular...
. This era also saw the company providing the scores for the original black and white Tintin series and being awarded an Ivor Novello Award for the theme to the TV series The Power Game starring Patrick Wymark
Patrick Wymark
Patrick Wymark , was a British, stage, film and television actor.-Early life:Born Patrick Carl Cheeseman in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, England...
. Music was also provided for classic episodes of Dr. Who, while in the ‘70s De Wolfe scored The Sweeney
The Sweeney
The Sweeney is a 1970s British television police drama focusing on two members of the Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police specialising in tackling armed robbery and violent crime in London...
, Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a BBC TV sketch comedy series. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines...
and cartoon theme tunes for Roobarb & Custard and Henry's Cat
Henry's Cat
Henry's Cat is an animated children's television programme, written by Stan Hayward and produced by Bob Godfrey, who was also the producer of Roobarb, a similar cartoon series from the 1970s...
. Eye Level, the theme music for the television detective series Van Der Valk
Van der Valk
Van der Valk is a British television series that was produced by Thames Television for the ITV network. It starred Barry Foster in the title role as Dutch detective Commissaris "Piet" van der Valk...
, became a million-selling number one single in 1973. To composer Jack Trombey’s surprise, Eye Level topped the charts for six weeks and saw Simon Park conducting his Orchestra week after week on Top Of The Pops alongside glam superstars Wizzard
Wizzard
Wizzard was a Birmingham-based band formed by Roy Wood, former member of The Move and co-founder of Electric Light Orchestra. The Guinness Book of 500 Number One Hits states, "Wizzard was Roy Wood just as much as Wings were Paul McCartney."-Biography:...
and The Sweet. It was the first TV theme ever to hit Number One, and proved so popular the Simon Park Orchestra
Simon Park Orchestra
The Simon Park Orchestra is a group which is most notable for producing the instrumental, "Eye Level", which spent four weeks at the number one position in the UK Singles Chart in September 1973. Simon Park was born in March 1946 in Market Harborough, England...
actually outsold The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
in the UK for a whole week! Much of De Wolfe’s music from that era has since become cult among record collectors and music enthusiasts all over the world.
1970
Many more obscure De Wolfe scores lurk in the thousands of cult classic Kung Fu movies by Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers, including The Mighty Peking Man
The Mighty Peking Man
The Mighty Peking Man is a 1977 film produced in Hong Kong by Shaw Brothers Studio to capitalize on the craze surrounding the 1976 remake of King Kong...
from 1976 and 1979’s Return to the 36th Chamber
Return to the 36th Chamber
Return To The 36th Chamber is a 1980 Shaw Brothers Studio Hong Kong martial arts comedy film starring Gordon Liu. It is directed by Lau Kar-Leung and written by Ni Kuang...
, as well as many popular TV shows from the seventies like Miss Jones and Son and Man About the House
Man About the House
Man About the House is a British sitcom starring Richard O'Sullivan, Paula Wilcox and Sally Thomsett that was broadcast for six seasons on ITV from 1973 to 1976. It was created and written by Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke. The series was considered daring at the time due to its subject matter of...
. De Wolfe’s music also graces some of the highly popular and relentlessly bawdy British comedies like Zeta One, Eskimo Nell and Adventures of a Taxi Driver
Adventures of a Taxi Driver
Adventures of a Taxi Driver is a 1976 British sex comedy film starring Barry Evans, Judy Geeson and Adrienne Posta. There were two sequels, Adventures of a Private Eye and Adventures of a Plumber's Mate.-Cast:* Barry Evans as Joe North...
, but there is no doubt the best known work from the end of the seventies can be found in the Monty Python
Monty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
surreal classics Time Bandits
Time Bandits
Time Bandits is a 1981 British fantasy film produced and directed by Terry Gilliam.Terry Gilliam wrote the screenplay with fellow Monty Python alumnus Michael Palin, who appears with Shelley Duvall in the small, recurring roles of Vincent and Pansy. The film is one of the most famous of more than...
, The Holy Grail, The Meaning of Life, Jabberwocky
Jabberwocky
"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense verse poem written by Lewis Carroll in his 1872 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...
and Life of Brian.
1975
The seventies saw De Wolfe expanding its library with the addition of The Rouge catalogue in 1975, run by Rosalind de Wolfe, wife of James de Wolfe and one of the company’s directors. This popular catalogue itself recently expanded with the new Club Rouge and a Jazz series, both of which have been very successful. The roster of companies under the De Wolfe umbrella currently includes Commercial Breaks, the De Wolfe Jazz label and a Classical RPO series which features pieces recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...
. Many of the very earliest De Wolfe compositions are still available in its Millennium series, while the company also owns the Classic Hudson label, originally acquired in the thirties to release 78’s of popular dance music, and which now exists as a niche and eclectic production music library. Sylvester Music Co Limited has also been part of De Wolfe since the early days, originally existing as a song sheet publisher and whose subsequent LPs included talents like jazz icon Martial Solal
Martial Solal
Martial Solal is a French jazz pianist and composer, who is probably most widely known for the music he wrote for Jean-Luc Godard's debut feature film À bout de souffle .-Biography:...
and film score composer Vladimir Cosma
Vladimir Cosma
Vladimir Cosma was born April 13, 1940 in Bucharest, Romania, into a family of musicians.His father, Teodor Cosma, was a pianist and conductor, his mother a writer-composer, his uncle, Edgar Cosma, composer and conductor, and one of his grandmothers, pianist, a student of the renowned Ferrucio...
. One of the newer additions to the De Wolfe Group has been the sound effects department, dedicated to designing and supplying effects for film, TV and games productions. De Wolfe SFX is run by Janine de Wolfe, James de Wolfe’s daughter.
1978
The third generation of the De Wolfe family started at the company in 1978. Meyer de Wolfe’s grandson, Warren de Wolfe, began in the Transfer and Editing department at the company’s old premises in Wardour Street
Wardour Street
Wardour Street is a street in Soho, London. It is a one-way street south to north from Leicester Square, up through Chinatown, across Shaftesbury Avenue to Oxford Street.-History:...
. Warren joined at a time when the company was developing its own Angel Studios complex in Islington in 1979. Recording began in 1982 and by 1983 Angel was already attracting acts like The Cure
The Cure
The Cure are an English rock band formed in Crawley, West Sussex in 1976. The band has experienced several line-up changes, with frontman, vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter Robert Smith being the only constant member...
and Siouxsie and the Banshees, who hired the studio commercially. After opening a third studio at the complex in 1987, the premises developed further into a significant business for De Wolfe, not only allowing its composers access to a world class studio, but also supplying a facility for today’s leading artists. Ian Brown
Ian Brown
Ian George Brown is an English musician, best known as the lead singer of the alternative rock band The Stone Roses, which broke up in 1996 but are confirmed to reunite in 2012. Since the break-up of the Stone Roses he has pursued a solo career...
, Goldfrapp
Goldfrapp
Goldfrapp are an English electronic music duo, formed in 1999 in London, England, that consists of Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory ....
, Kaiser Chiefs
Kaiser Chiefs
Kaiser Chiefs are an English indie rock band from Leeds who formed in 1996. They were named after the South African football club Kaizer Chiefs....
, Funeral for a Friend
Funeral for a Friend
Funeral for a Friend are a Welsh post-hardcore band, from Bridgend. Formed 2001, they have released five studio albums, seven EPs, sixteen singles, one DVD, and one compilation album.-Formation and Early Years:...
, Elbow
Elbow (band)
Elbow are an English rock band. They have played together since 1990 and recorded five studio albums, the most recent of which is Build a Rocket Boys!, released in March 2011...
, The Feeling
The Feeling
The Feeling are a BRIT award-nominated English pop band from West Sussex and London. The band categorise their music as "pop".Following a limited release of their first single "Fill My Little World" in late 2005, the band entered the UK Singles Chart at #7 with their first full release "Sewn" in...
and Karl Jenkins
Karl Jenkins
-Other works:*Adiemus: Live — live versions of Adiemus music*Palladio *Eloise *Imagined Oceans *The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace...
(for his acclaimed Adiemus
Adiemus
-Concept:Each Adiemus album is a collection of song-length pieces featuring harmonised vocal melody against an orchestral background. There are no lyrics as such: instead the vocalists sing syllables and 'words' invented by Jenkins...
project) are amongst those to have recorded there, while most famously, and fittingly, it was also where Robbie Williams
Robbie Williams
Robert Peter "Robbie" Williams is an English singer-songwriter, vocal coach and occasional actor. He is a member of the pop group Take That. Williams rose to fame in the band's first run in the early- to mid-1990s. After many disagreements with the management and certain group members, Williams...
recorded parts for his worldwide smash hit Angels.
The Angel Studio’s expansive orchestra room also ensures its popularity among film score composers like Eric Serra
Eric Serra
Éric Serra is a French composer. He has often worked on the movies of Luc Besson.- Biography :Éric Serra's father Claude was a famous French songwriter in the 1950s and '60s, and, as such, Éric was exposed to music and its production at a young age. His mother died when he was just seven years old...
who scored Léon
Léon (film)
Léon is a 1994 French thriller film written and directed by Luc Besson...
and the James Bond film GoldenEye
GoldenEye
GoldenEye is the seventeenth spy film in the James Bond series, and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film was directed by Martin Campbell and is the first film in the series not to take story elements from the works of novelist Ian Fleming...
there. George Fenton
George Fenton
George Fenton is a British composer best known for his work writing film scores and music for television, although he also writes music for the theatre. His real name is George Howe but he is better known by his pseudonym of George Fenton.-Selected film and television credits:Fenton has composed...
used the studio to record his award-winning scores for natural history shows The Blue Planet
The Blue Planet
The Blue Planet is a BBC nature documentary series narrated by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the UK from 12 September 2001.Described as "the first ever comprehensive series on the natural history of the world's oceans", each of the eight 50-minute episodes examines a different aspect of...
and Planet Earth
Planet Earth (TV series)
Planet Earth is a 2006 television series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit. Five years in the making, it was the most expensive nature documentary series ever commissioned by the BBC, and also the first to be filmed in high definition...
, while other projects have included Alex Heffes
Alex Heffes
Alex Heffes is a British film composer . His film scores include the BAFTA-winning Touching the Void, and Oscar-winning movies One Day in September and The Last King of Scotland....
for Touching The Void
Touching the Void
Touching the Void is a 1988 book by Joe Simpson, recounting his and Simon Yates's disastrous and nearly fatal climb of the 6,344-metre Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985....
, Maury Weston for Nine (film)
Nine (film)
Nine is a 2009 musical-romantic film directed and produced by Rob Marshall. The screenplay, written by Michael Tolkin and Anthony Minghella, is based on Arthur Kopit's book for the 1982 musical of the same name, which was itself suggested by Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½...
, Ann Dudley for The Full Monty
The Full Monty
The Full Monty is a 1997 British comedy film directed by Peter Cattaneo, starring Robert Carlyle, Mark Addy, William Snape, Steve Huison, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Barber, and Hugo Speer. The screenplay was written by Simon Beaufoy...
and Craig Armstrong, who scored Moulin Rouge!
Moulin Rouge!
Moulin Rouge! is a 2001 romantic jukebox musical film directed, produced, and co-written by Baz Luhrmann. Following the Red Curtain Cinema principles, the film is based on the Orphean myth, La Traviata, and La Bohème...
and Romeo + Juliet. Among Angel Studios impressive roster of other blockbusting soundtracks are classics like The English Patient
The English Patient (film)
The English Patient is a 1996 romantic drama film based on the novel of the same name by Sri Lankan-Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje. The film, written for the screen and directed by Anthony Minghella, won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture...
(1996), The Crying Game
The Crying Game
The Crying Game is a 1992 psychological thriller drama film written and directed by Neil Jordan. The film explores themes of race, gender, nationality, and sexuality against the backdrop of the Irish Troubles...
(1992), Buster
Buster (film)
Buster is a 1988 comedy-drama film starring musician Phil Collins, Julie Walters, Larry Lamb and Sheila Hancock. The soundtrack featured two Phil Collins singles which eventually topped the Billboard 100 singles chart.-Plot:...
(1988), Memphis Belle
Memphis Belle (film)
Memphis Belle is a 1990 film directed by Michael Caton-Jones and written by Monte Merrick, starring Matthew Modine and Eric Stoltz and introducing Harry Connick Jr. in his screen debut...
(1990), Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England...
(2005) and The Lion King
The Lion King
The Lion King is a 1994 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 32nd feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series...
(1994). In order to maximise the potential of Angel Studios as a resource for De Wolfe’s bespoke compositions, the company also operates a separate department. Inter Angel enables De Wolfe clients, Angel Studios and the roster of composers to work to highly specific briefs. In recent years these have included the composition of music, themes, beds and idents for a range of high profile, mainstream television programmes including The Weakest Link
The Weakest Link
The Weakest Link is a television game show which first appeared in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on 14 August 2000 and will end its run in 2012 when its host Anne Robinson ends her contract. The original British version of the show airs around the world on BBC Entertainment...
, Richard & Judy
Richard & Judy
Richard & Judy was a British magazine/chat show which was presented by married couple Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan. It originally aired on Channel 4 from 2001 to 2008 but later moved to digital channel Watch in October 2008. It featured the world's most famous stars, along with their Book Club...
, The Price Is Right
The Price Is Right
The Price Is Right is a television game show franchise originally produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, and created by Bob Stewart, and is currently produced and owned by FremantleMedia. The franchise centers on television game shows, but also includes merchandise such as video games, printed...
, Saturday Kitchen
Saturday Kitchen
Saturday Kitchen Live is a 90 minute cookery programme, which is broadcast live on BBC One on Saturday mornings. It is currently presented by James Martin; previous presenters have included Antony Worrall Thompson and Gregg Wallace. The programme is currently produced by Cactus TV...
, House Doctor, How to Cheat at Cooking and Fame Academy
Fame Academy
Fame Academy is a televised competition to search for and educate new musical talents. The winner received a chance to become a successful music artist. The prize consisted of a £1m recording contract with a major record company, plus the use of a luxury apartment in London and a sports car for one...
. When ITV proposed a new arrangement for classic TV theme The Bill
The Bill
The Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work...
, the people they entrusted were Inter Angel.
1980
Since the 1980s De Wolfe has been scoring and sourcing music for some of the best loved television programs. Minder
Minder (TV series)
Minder is a British comedy-drama about the London criminal underworld. Initially produced by Verity Lambert, it was made by Euston Films, a subsidiary of Thames Television and shown on ITV...
, Max Headroom
Max Headroom (TV series)
Max Headroom is a British-produced American science fiction television series by Chrysalis/Lakeside Productions that aired in the United States on ABC from March 1987 to May 1988. The series was based on the Channel 4 British TV pilot Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future...
, Spitting Image
Spitting Image
Spitting Image is a British satirical puppet show that aired on the ITV network from 1984 to 1996. It was produced by Spitting Image Productions for Central Television. The series was nominated for 10 BAFTA Awards, winning one for editing in 1989....
, Jupiter Moon
Jupiter Moon
Jupiter Moon was a science fiction television series first broadcast by BSB's Galaxy Channel from 26 March 1990 until December the same year. 150 episodes were commissioned, but only the first 108 were broadcast by BSB...
and the US version of Jamaica Inn
Jamaica Inn
The Jamaica Inn, originally a public house and now an inn, is a Grade II listed building in the civil parish of Altarnun, Cornwall, United Kingdom. Located near the middle of Bodmin Moor near the hamlet of Bolventor, it was built as a coaching house in 1750 as a staging post for changing horses...
with Jane Seymour
Jane Seymour (actress)
Jane Seymour, OBE is an English actress best known for her performances in the James Bond film Live and Let Die , East of Eden , Onassis: The Richest Man in the World , and the American television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman...
were all completed in a decade where fast-developing digital technologies also came to the fore, the most significant being the evolution of the Compact Disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
. This provided yet another market leading moment for De Wolfe – the world’s first digital production music library. Released in 1985, it consisted of a series of 6 CDs and consequently led to De Wolfe ending the production of its vinyl series in 1988. Today, of course, the libraries are more accessible than ever, with clients able to obtain the whole library on customised USB hard drives or download tracks in broadcast quality format directly from www.searchdewolfe.com.
TODAY
The combination of the library’s cult status among record collectors and the increased availability of sampling since the eighties has also meant that many De Wolfe tracks appear regularly on commercial releases by internationally renowned artists. Beyoncé used a track for her song Woman Like Me from the 2006 film The Pink Panther
The Pink Panther
The Pink Panther is a series of comedy films featuring the bungling French police detective Jacques Clouseau that began in 1963 with the release of the film of the same name. The role was originated by, and is most closely associated with, Peter Sellers...
, and Gorillaz
Gorillaz
Gorillaz is an English musical project created in 1998 by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. This project consists of Gorillaz music itself and an extensive fictional universe depicting a "virtual band" of cartoon characters...
used the intro from Dawn of the Dead to start their Demon Days album. However it’s in the Hip-Hop genre that De Wolfe samples are most prevalent, appearing on albums by the likes of Fat Joe
Fat Joe
Joseph Antonio Cartagena , better known by his stage name Fat Joe, is an American rapper, CEO of Terror Squad Entertainment, and member of musical groups D.I.T.C. and Terror Squad....
, Jay-Z
Jay-Z
Shawn Corey Carter , better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2010...
, Cam’Ron, Stereo MC’s, Mos Def
Mos Def
Dante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...
, Ric-A-Che, The Nextmen
The Nextmen
The Nextmen are a UK production/songwriting group consisting of Dom Search and Brad Baloo . Often incorporating hip hop drum sets and electronic basslines into their sound, they have worked with many artists from the UK, US and Jamaica...
, among others.
Having reached its centenary year in 2009, De Wolfe continues as both a family run company and an industry leader, with James de Wolfe as Chairman, Warren de Wolfe as Managing Director and Rosalind de Wolfe as Director along with senior members of staff, Alan Howe, Stephen Rosie, Frank Barretta and Chris Clarke, each of whom has been with the company more than 16 years. The company is the world’s largest independent production music library, with offices and agents based in forty countries from USA to Russia, and as far flung as South Africa, Australia and Japan. The company is represented in seven countries by EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
, and boasts an ever-expanding roster of composers. De Wolfe’s roll call includes some of the UK’s leading talents, both past and present: Jack Trombey, Simon Park, Tim Souster
Tim Souster
Tim Souster was a British composer best known for his electronic music output.- Background :Born Timothy Andrew James Souster in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, Souster was educated at Bedford Modern School and New College, Oxford...
, Andy Quin, Alex Heffes
Alex Heffes
Alex Heffes is a British film composer . His film scores include the BAFTA-winning Touching the Void, and Oscar-winning movies One Day in September and The Last King of Scotland....
, Stanley Myers
Stanley Myers
Stanley Myers , was a prolific British film composer who scored over sixty films. Born in Birmingham, as a teenager Myers went to King Edward's School in Edgbaston, a suburb of Birmingham...
, Stephane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli was a French jazz violinist who founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands....
, John Altman
John Altman (composer)
John Altman is a British film composer, music arranger, orchestrator and conductor.-Biography:Altman was introduced to the music of the 1930s and 1940s at an early age by an uncle who arranged and composed music for big bands and conducted for Judy Garland, the Marx Brothers, and Laurel and Hardy,...
, Stanley Black, David Bradnum, Frank Mcdonald and Chris Rae, Paul Lawler, Frederic Talgorn
Frédéric Talgorn
Frédéric Talgorn is a French composer for film and television.He studied music at the Paris Conservatoire where his teachers included Sabine Lacoraet and Yvonne Loriod, but he completed his studies on his own. In 1987 he moved to the United States where be began to compose film music...
, York Bowen, Johnny Hawksworth
Johnny Hawksworth
Johnny Hawksworth is a British musician and composer who has lived and worked in Australia since 1984.Hawksworth initially trained as a pianist, but also played double bass for Britain's leading big band the Ted Heath Orchestra during the early 1950s and through the 1960s...
, Steve Sidwell, Ivor Slaney
Ivor Slaney
Ivor Ernst Slaney was a prolific musical composer and conductor, notable for his work in film, television and radio....
, Reg Tilsley, Ronald Binge
Ronald Binge
Ronald Binge was a British composer and arranger of light music.-Biography:He was born in a working-class neighbourhood in Derby in the English Midlands. In his childhood he was a chorister at Saint Andrews Church , London Road, Derby - 'the railwaymens church'...
, David Kelly, Hampton Hawes, Basil Kirchin
Basil Kirchin
Basil Kirchin was a British drummer and composer. His career stretched from playing drums in his father's big band at the age of 13, through scoring films, to experimenting with the manipulation of recorded sounds which has seen him cited as "the father of ambient music."-Emergence:Basil...
, Alan Parker, Roger Webb, Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello
David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...
, Colin Kiddy, Howie, David Hubbard, Nigel Mullaney, Danny Davies, Jonathan Jowett, Simon Stewart, Troy Banarzi
Troy Banarzi
Troy Banarzi is a British-born composer and artist of Indian/Irish descent. He is considered “an experimental music maker with a more art-orientated approach”, creating music with a "folk influence and a fairy-tale quality". He has collaborated with, amongst others, the Rambert Dance Company,...
, Ross Hardy, John Leach, Paul Leonard-Morgan
Paul Leonard-Morgan
Christopher Paul Leonard-Morgan is a Scottish composer, particularly known for his work in scoring for television and film. He won a BAFTA award for his first film score, for the movie Pineapple. He was nominated for a BAFTA and an Ivor Novello award for his score to the ITV drama Fallen. He...
, Terry Keating, Ian Boddy
Ian Boddy
Ian Boddy is a British electronic musician and composer. In the early 1980s Boddy began experimenting at an Arts Council funded studio in Newcastle. This period resulted in 3 cassette releases on the Mirage label, which showcased Boddy's work with analogue synthesis and tape manipulation. "Images"...
, Paul Lewis
Paul Lewis
Paul Lewis may refer to:*Paul Lewis , American architect and professor at the Princeton University School of Architecture*Paul Lewis , African American activist who lived in London, Ontario...
, Karl Jenkins
Karl Jenkins
-Other works:*Adiemus: Live — live versions of Adiemus music*Palladio *Eloise *Imagined Oceans *The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace...
, Terry Gadsden, Hermann Langschwert and Nick Ingman
Nick Ingman
Nicholas Ingman is an orchestra conductor and composer.Early recordings include:*'Big Beat' *'The Love Album' *'Terminator'...
.
Selected credits include: Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (film)
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (film)
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll is a 2010 biopic of Ian Dury, starring Andy Serkis as Dury. The film follows Dury's rise to fame and documents his personal battle with the disability caused by having contracted polio during childhood. The effect that his disability and his lifestyle have upon his...
; Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee. It is a film adaptation of the 1997 short story of the same name by Annie Proulx with the screenplay written by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry...
; Grindhouse
Grindhouse
A grindhouse is an American term for a theater that mainly shows exploitation films. It is named after the defunct burlesque theaters located on 42nd Street in New York City, where 'bump n' grind' dancing and striptease were featured.- History :...
; Michael Moore’s Sicko; The Prestige
The Prestige
The Prestige is a 1995 novel by British writer Christopher Priest. The novel is epistolary in structure: that is, it purports to be a collection of real diaries that were kept by the protagonists and later collated...
; Adventureland (film)
Adventureland (film)
Adventureland is a 2009 Retro comedy-drama film written and directed by Greg Mottola. The film stars Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Margarita Levieva, Ryan Reynolds, Martin Starr, Bill Hader, and Kristen Wiig.-Plot:...
; Octopussy
Octopussy
Octopussy is the thirteenth entry in the James Bond series, and the sixth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film's title is taken from a short story in Ian Fleming's 1966 short story collection Octopussy and The Living Daylights...
; Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a 1974 British comedy film written and performed by the comedy group Monty Python , and directed by Gilliam and Jones...
; The Fourth Protocol
The Fourth Protocol
The Fourth Protocol is a novel written by Frederick Forsyth and published in August 1984.-Explanation of the novel's title:The title refers to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which contained four secret protocols. The fourth, of the protocols, was meant to prohibit the non-conventional...
; The Cider House Rules
The Cider House Rules
The Cider House Rules is a 1985 novel by John Irving. It is Irving's sixth published novel, and has been adapted into a film of the same name and a stage play by Peter Parnell.-Plot:...
; Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas; The Living Daylights
The Living Daylights
The Living Daylights is the fifteenth entry in the James Bond series and the first to star Timothy Dalton as the fictional MI6 agent 007. The film's title is taken from Ian Fleming's short story, "The Living Daylights"...
and the classic Emmanuelle
Emmanuelle
Emmanuelle is the lead character in a series of French softcore erotic movies based on a character created by Emmanuelle Arsan in the novel Emmanuelle...
. Similarly, De Wolfe music features on countless TV productions including Spitting Image
Spitting Image
Spitting Image is a British satirical puppet show that aired on the ITV network from 1984 to 1996. It was produced by Spitting Image Productions for Central Television. The series was nominated for 10 BAFTA Awards, winning one for editing in 1989....
; Coronation Street
Coronation Street
Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...
; Inspector Morse
Inspector Morse (TV series)
Inspector Morse is a detective drama based on Colin Dexter's series of Chief Inspector Morse novels. The series starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis. Dexter makes a cameo appearance in all but three of the episodes....
; Neighbours
Neighbours
Neighbours is an Australian television soap opera first broadcast on the Seven Network on 18 March 1985. It was created by TV executive Reg Watson, who proposed the idea of making a show that focused on realistic stories and portrayed adults and teenagers who talk openly and solve their problems...
; kids favourite Balamory
Balamory
Balamory was a live action television series on British television for pre-school children, based around the fictional small island community of Balamory in Scotland. It was produced between 2002 and 2005 by BBC Scotland, with 254 episodes made...
; Great British Journeys, Grumpy Old Men
Grumpy Old Men (film)
Grumpy Old Men is a 1993 American romantic comedy film starring Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, and Ann-Margret, with Burgess Meredith, Daryl Hannah, Kevin Pollak, Katie Sagona, Ossie Davis, and Buck Henry. Directed by Donald Petrie, the screenplay was written by Mark Steven Johnson, who also wrote...
; Poirot; Churchill’s Bodyguard and Crimes and Trials of the 20th Century. All have been enhanced by production music from De Wolfe’s huge library, along with vast numbers of TV commercials, computer games and documentaries. Similarly, the corporate market has also benefited, from its early origins in those information movies of the 50s, through slide projectors to “the audio visual show” and then video. Nowadays the corporate business represents a vast opportunity as it grows and thrives in an ever expanding digital format both on screen and on line.
With a hundred years of history to celebrate, De Wolfe can not only look on its past with pride but also to its future with confidence. By continually tracking the very latest musical trends and technologies, De Wolfe is at the forefront of today’s ever-changing media service industry. An international market leader with the service values of a family independent, the present day company is exactly how Meyer de Wolfe would have wanted.