Alan Blaikley

Alan Blaikley^[1] (born 23 March 1940)^[2] is an English songwriter and composer. He is best known for writing a series of international hits in the 1960s and 1970s in collaboration with Ken Howard, including the UK number ones "Have I the Right?" and "The Legend of Xanadu".^[3] Together with Howard, he has also written two West End musicals and a number of TV themes, including the theme music for the BBC's long-running series of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple.

Early life and career

Born Alan Tudor Blaikley^[4] in Hampstead Garden Suburb, London,^[1] Blaikley was educated at University College School (UCS), Hampstead, and Wadham College, Oxford, where he read Classical Moderations (Latin and Greek) and English, and was Reviews Editor of the university newspaper, Cherwell.

After coming down from university, he joined forces with two old UCS friends Ken Howard and Paul Overy with whom, between 1962 and 1963, he ran and edited four issues of a magazine, Axle Quarterly, publishing early work by Melvyn Bragg, Ray Gosling, Alexis Lykiard, Gillian Freeman and Simon Raven, among others. An offshoot of the Quarterly was a series of five booklets on controversial topics commissioned by Blaikley, Howard and Overy, Axle Spokes (Axle Publications 1963): Peter Graham The Abortive Renaissance,^[5] a critical examination of British New Wave cinema; John Gale Sex – is it easy?^[6], the emergence of the permissive society; Gavin Millar Pop! – hit or miss?,^[7] the British hit-parade in the early days of the Beatles; Anthony Rowley (pseudonym of Alan Blaikley) Another Kind of Loving,^[8] homosexuality in the years when it was still a criminal offence in the UK; Melville Hardiment Hooked,^[9] an enquiry into the extent and nature of drug addiction in the early 1960s.

At the same time, as a freelance, Blaikley wrote and narrated several BBC radio programmes, including Writing for Children, in which he interviewed C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and Enid Blyton. From 1963 to 1964 Blaikley was a trainee producer with BBC TV Talks Department and worked on the daily current affairs programme Tonight.

It had been earlier, during his years as a choir-boy at St-Mary-at-Finchley, that he began to realise that, while his voice was less than brilliant, he did possess a gift for inventing ear-catching melodies. This period as a chorister he regards as his essential musical education.^[10]

Songwriting and composing

International hits in the 1960s and 1970s

In the 1960s and 1970s, in collaboration with Ken Howard, Blaikley composed the music and words for many international top 10 hits,^[11][12][13] including two UK number ones, "Have I the Right?" (The Honeycombs)^[14] and "The Legend of Xanadu" (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich).^[15][16][17]

Among other performers for whom they have written are Petula Clark, Phil Collins, Sacha Distel, Rolf Harris, Frankie Howerd (the theme song for his film Up Pompeii), Engelbert Humperdinck, Horst Jankowski, Eartha Kitt, Little Eva, Marmalade, The Herd, Lulu and Matthews Southern Comfort.^[18]

Blaikley and Howard were the first British composers to write for Elvis Presley, including the hit "I've Lost You" (1970),^[19] which he later performed in the film That's The Way It Is.^[20]

Ark 2

Blaikley and Howard's concept album, Ark 2 (1969), performed by Flaming Youth,^[21] drew the comment that Blaikley and Howard "have a wit, gaiety, dignity and melodic flair reminiscent of Leonard Bernstein...which suggest that pop is becoming the serious music – in the proper sense – of the age"^[22]

Musicals

Blaikley and Howard wrote two West End musicals, Mardi Gras (Prince of Wales Theatre, 1976)^[23] and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (Wyndham's Theatre, 1984 – 1986), and two BBC TV musicals Orion (1977) and Ain't Many Angels (1978). They also wrote music and lyrics to the 1990 UK tour of Roald Dahl's Matilda.^[24]

TV themes

Blaikley and Howard have also been responsible for theme and incidental music for several television drama series including The Flame Trees of Thika (1981) and By the Sword Divided (1983–1985),^[25] both subsequently aired in the US on Alistair Cooke's Masterpiece Theatre, and the BBC's long-running series of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple (1984–1992).

Interest in psychotherapy

Blaikley had long been interested in analytical psychology and, at the instigation of his analyst, mentor and friend, Dr William Kraemer, he trained as a psychotherapist at the Westminster Pastoral Foundation (The Foundation for Psychotherapy and Counselling).^[26]

On graduating he ran a private practice from his home between 1981 and 2003. This led to a collaboration between Blaikley and Howard and the maverick psychiatrist R. D. Laing on the cult album Life before Death.^[27][28][29]

Work in progress

Blaikley is working on a memoir Have I the Right? – Memories, Reflections, Notes as well as maintaining his collaboration with Howard, with whom he is co-director of an active publishing company, Axle Music Ltd.^[30]

Personal life

Blaikley's partner from 1978 to 2015 was the translator David Charles Harris (1954-2015), with whom he entered into a civil partnership in 2007.^[31]

See also

• List of Old Gowers

References

External links

• Website about Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley, including a biography and audio and video of some of their hits
• Life before Death – 1978 album of sonnets and other poems performed by R. D. Laing to an original musical score composed by Alan Blaikley and Ken Howard
• Ark 2 – the 'space cantata' composed by Alan Blaikley and Ken Howard and performed by Flaming Youth