Johnny Harris is a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 born composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, producer

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

, arranger

Arranger

In investment banking, an arranger is a provider of funds in the syndication of a debt. They are entitled to syndicate the loan or bond issue, and may be referred to as the "lead underwriter". This is because this entity bears the risk of being able to sell the underlying securities/debt or the...

, conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

 and musical director. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland; and a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. He has lived in the US since 1972. Originally a member of the short-lived beat group The Shubdubs with drummer Jimmie Nicol and organist Roger Coulam, he joined PYE Records in 1965 as an arranger working alongside Peter Knight

Peter Knight

Peter Knight is a folk musician, member of the electric folk group Steeleye Span.Peter Knight was born in London on 27 May 1947. As a child he learned the violin and mandolin before going to the Royal Academy of Music from 1960 to 1964. The recordings of the Irish fiddler Michael Coleman inspired...

 and Tony Hatch

Tony Hatch

Anthony Peter "Tony" Hatch is an English composer, songwriter, pianist, music arranger and producer.-Early life and early career:...

. He arranged, conducted and produced the majority of tracks on the Shirley Bassey

Shirley Bassey

Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...

 albums "Something", "Something Else", "I Capricorn", "And I Love You So", "Never Never Never" and "All By Myself". He was the regular musical director for the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 light entertainment show Happening For Lulu in 1968-69 starring singer Lulu

Lulu (singer)

Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, OBE , best known by her stage name Lulu, is a Scottish singer, actress, and television personality who has been successful in the entertainment business from the 1960s through to the present day...

 and conducted her Eurovision Song Contest

Eurovision Song Contest

The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union .Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition...

 winner Boom Bang-A-Bang in 1969. He was the musical director for the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

/ZDF

ZDF

Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...

 co-production Pop Go The Sixties

Pop Go The Sixties

Pop Go The Sixties! was a one-off, seventy five-minute TV special originally broadcast in colour on 31 December 1969, to celebrate the major pop hits of the 1960s. The show was a co-production between the United Kingdom's BBC and Germany's ZDF broadcasters...

 broadcast on BBC1 on 31 December 1969 as well for BBC shows for Georgie Fame

Georgie Fame

Georgie Fame is a British rhythm and blues and jazz singer and keyboard player. The one-time rock and roll tour musician, who had a string of 1960s hits, is still a popular performer, often working with contemporaries such as Van Morrison and Bill Wyman.-Early life:Fame took piano lessons from the...

, Petula Clark

Petula Clark

Petula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...

, Mike and Bernie Winters and actor-singer Keith Michell

Keith Michell

Keith Michell is an Australian actor, particularly noted for his television and film performances as King Henry VIII of England.- Early life :He was born in Adelaide and brought up in Warnertown, near Port Pirie...

.

He composed the scores for several cult movies including Fragment of Fear

Fragment of Fear

Fragment of Fear is a 1970 British thriller film starring David Hemmings, Gayle Hunnicutt, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Roland Culver, Flora Robson and Arthur Lowe. -Plot:...

 (1970), I Want What I Want

I Want What I Want

I Want What I Want by Geoff Brown was first published in 1966 by Great Britain's Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Limited. A film by the same title, the script of which was written by Gillian Freeman, stars Anne Heywood....

 (1972) and Man in the Wilderness

Man in the Wilderness

Man in the Wilderness is a 1971 American action film about a scout for a group of mountain men who are traversing the Northwestern United States during the 1820s. The scout is mauled by a bear and left to die by his companions. He survives and recuperates sufficiently to track his former...

 (1971).

His 1980 underground hit 'Odyssey' (TK Records

TK Records

TK Records was an American record label started by record distributor, Henry Stone in Miami, Florida, one of several labels that he founded in the 1960s and 1970s...

) featured prominently on popular video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a 2004 open world action video game developed by British games developer Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the third 3D game in the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise, the fifth original console release and eighth game overall...

playing on Bounce FM funk radio, as well as being in the lowrider challenge mission. The song was also featured in the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (TV series)

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is an American science fiction adventure television series produced by Universal Studios. The series ran for two seasons between 1979–1981, and the feature-length pilot episode for the series was released as a theatrical film several months before the series aired....

episode "Space Rockers" (Harris originally wrote the song for that episode).

External links