John Stanley Livingstone Harris (9 November 1932 – 20 March 2020) was a Scottish composer, producer, arranger, conductor, and musical director. He lived in the United States from 1972 until his death.
The British years (1932–1972) Johnny Harris was born in Edinburgh, Scotland to Welsh parents and was a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music in London. He was originally a trumpet player with the Norman Burns band and big bands led by Vic Lewis, Ken Mackintosh, Cyril Stapleton and then a member of the short-lived beat group The Shubdubs with drummer Jimmie Nicol and organist Roger Coulam. In 1964, he recorded a Beatles cover version album and EP called Beatlemania with Jimmie Nicol which resulted in Nicol replacing the ill Ringo Starr on a worldwide Beatles tour.
He joined Pye Records in 1965 as an arranger and conductor for producer Tony Hatch and his then-wife Jackie Trent. Johnny had an un-credited role as conductor on the Nancy Sinatra In London album and worked with many other artists in the sixties as a staff member at Pye. He worked freelance for many other record labels in Great Britain and Europe and was a regular arranger, conductor and producer for Petula Clark until she left Pye in 1971.
The first official colour programme on BBC 1 was a concert by Petula Clark with the Johnny Harris Orchestra from the Royal Albert Hall, London, broadcast at midnight on 14/15 November 1969. He arranged, conducted and produced the majority of tracks on the Shirley Bassey albums Something, Something Else, I Capricorn, And I Love You So, Never Never Never and All by Myself and many tracks on sixties Decca Records Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck albums. Johnny was the musical director for the BBC light entertainment show Happening For Lulu in 1968–69 with the Scottish singer Lulu and conducted her Eurovision Song Contest joint-winner Boom Bang-A-Bang in Madrid, 1969 which led to him gaining a solo record deal with Warner Bros. UK. He was the musical director for the BBC/ZDF co-production Pop Go The Sixties broadcast on BBC 1 on 31 December 1969 and had his own 1969 BBC Show of the Week called Up Tight featuring Georgie Fame and Lulu.
His album Movements was recorded with the best London session musicians in the spring of 1970, was performed live at the Royal Albert Hall and was pressed by Warner's three times in the UK (on orange, green and Burbank labels) and reissued on CD by Warner Bros. UK in 2002 with remastered sound, bonus tracks and an interview with Harris talking about the album and his career. Movements and All To Bring You Morning were again released in 2015 as limited edition SHMCD's by Warner Bros. Japan for the Japanese only market (this is the first time both Movements and All To Bring You Morning have been issued in Japan). Movements was again out-of-print worldwide until a vinyl only Australian release came out in November 2017.
Singles released from the Movements album were the space age classic Footprints on the Moon (1969) and the moody suspense theme Fragment of Fear (1970) from the film of the same name starring David Hemmings. Shirley Bassey recorded a vocal version of his arrangement of The Doors Light My Fire from Movements on her 1970 Something album (issued in the US as the Shirley Bassey Is Really "Something" album) which she still performs today.
Warner Bros. UK also released his Man in the Wilderness film soundtrack (1971) and the sequel to Movements, All To Bring You Morning (1973) before he left for the US to work with Paul Anka.
He composed the scores for several cult British films including Fragment of Fear (1970), Bloomfield (1971, his score was recorded in 1969 featuring Maurice Gibb of The Bee Gees), Man in the Wilderness (1971) and I Want What I Want (1972).
The American years (1972–2020) Harris moved to the United States to record and conduct his orchestra in Las Vegas with Paul Anka where Elvis Presley asked him to lead his Vegas band. In 1973, while back in the UK at Advision Studios, he recorded the album All To Bring You Morning, with progressive rock musicians from the group Yes, Jon Anderson on vocals, Steve Howe on guitars and Alan White on drums who happened to be working in the next studio at Advision and asked to be involved in his follow-up album to Movements.