Jimmie Haskell

Jimmie Haskell (born Sheridan Pearlman, November 7, 1936 – February 4, 2016) was a prolific American composer and arranger for a variety of popular singers and motion pictures.^[1][2]

Biography

Haskell was born in Brooklyn, New York. He entered the musical business through being hired to do arrangements with Imperial Records. He became the arranger of choice for Ricky Nelson and arranged such hits as "There's Nothing I Can Say" (1964). In the late 1960s and early 1970s Haskell was the arranger of choice for The Grass Roots.^[3] He also provided horn and string arrangements for Blondie's 1980 album Autoamerican.

He entered the motion picture soundtrack industry in 1960 as an uncredited orchestrator for Dimitri Tiomkin's The Alamo and composed his first score the following year Love in a Goldfish Bowl. His composition The Silly Song became the theme song of American television's The Hollywood Squares.

In addition to composing and arranging, Haskell would often act as conductor and selected the musicians used.^[4]

Awards

Haskell was awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition for a Special (Dramatic Underscore) for See How She Runs (1978) and has received two other nominations. He was awarded Grammies for his arrangements of Ode to Billie Joe, Bridge Over Troubled Water and If You Leave Me Now.^[5]

Selected filmography

• Love in a Goldfish Bowl (1961)
• I'll Take Sweden (1965)
• Town Tamer (1965)
• Apache Uprising (1965)
• Red Tomahawk (1966)
• Johnny Reno (1966)
• Waco (1966)
• Hostile Guns (1967)
• Fort Utah (1967)
• The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz (1968)
• Arizona Bushwhackers (1968)
• Buckskin (1968)
• The Thousand Plane Raid (1969)
• Zachariah (1971)
• The Honkers (1972)
• Night of the Lepus (1972)
• Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974)
• Death Game (1977)
• Joyride (1977)
• Hughes and Harlow: Angels in Hell (1978)
• The Jericho Mile (1979)
• Guyana: Crime of the Century (1979)
• Goldie and the Boxer (1979)
• The Jayne Mansfield Story (1980)
• Hard Country (1981)
• Jake Spanner, Private Eye (1989)

Television scores

• The Hollywood Squares (1965) (composer)
• Bewitched (1966) (composer)
• The Andy Williams Show (1968) (composer)
• The Doris Day Show (1969) (composer)
• Curiosity Shop (1971)
• Land of the Lost (1974) (composer)
• Silent Möbius (1998) (main composer with Suzie Katayama and Kenichi Sudo)

References

1. "LondonJazz: TRIBUTE: Jimmie Haskell (1936- 2016)". londonjazznews.com.
2. Jimmie Haskell - Biography
3. Jimmie Haskell memories of The Grass Roots, retrieved 2014-08-29
4. Billboard - Google Books. Books.google.com.au. 1974-05-04. Retrieved 2012-02-20.
5. Los Angeles   (2004-08-27). "Jimmie Haskell: The Man Behind the Music - 2004-08-27 | News | English". Voanews.com. Retrieved 2012-02-20.

External links

• Official web site
• Jimmie Haskell at Space Age Pop
• Jimmie Haskell at the Internet Movie Database
• Haskell interview on Ricky Nelson