Tag Archives: Quinn Martin Collection

The Invaders

For our second volume of music from classic Quinn Martin television shows, we chose The Invaders, the short-lived (two seasons, 1967-68) science-fiction series that starred Roy Thinnes as an architect who stumbles upon an alien invasion of Earth and then has endless trouble convincing anyone of his story. Dominic Frontiere wrote the theme and three scores, which occupy the first of our two discs. The second disc consists of suites from all of the other scored shows, including music by Duane Tatro, Richard Markowitz, Irving Gertz and Sidney Cutner. The colorful 20-page booklet was designed by Dan Goldwasser (who also designed this website for me). This was all possible because The Film Music Society, a vital film-music preservation organization, is the home of an estimated 500 reels of QM music, saved when the company went out business back in the early 1980s.

Quinn Martin Collection, Vol. 1: Cops and Detectives

Together with The Film Music Society and La-La Land Records, I have launched a new series of albums of classic TV music we are calling The Quinn Martin Collection. Martin was one of TV’s top producers in the 1960s and ’70s, and he enjoyed considerable success in the law-and-order arena. Volume 1 is subtitled “Cop and Detective Series” and features the pilot scores for Barnaby Jones (1973-80, by Jerry Goldsmith), Most Wanted (1976-77, by Lalo Schifrin), Dan August (1970-71, Dave Grusin) and Cannon (1971-76, John Parker). Rounding out the two-disc set are additional scores by Bruce Broughton, Grusin and Parker (for Barnaby Jones, Dan August and Cannon, respectively) and themes from other ’70s QM series including The Manhunter (Duane Tatro), Caribe (Nelson Riddle), Bert D’Angelo / Superstar (Patrick Williams) and Tales of the Unexpected (David Shire). In the colorfully illustrated 16-page booklet, I discuss all of the series and the circumstances of these top composers working in series television.