In the early 1980s "everything old was new again" as in directly preceding years films such as SUPERMAN, STAR WARS, ROCKY and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK turned "retro" pulp into the wave of the future. TV's response exploded in 1988 with reduxes of AMAZING STORIES, ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS and THE TWILIGHT ZONE, along with new series based on the classic gumshoe milieu - among them ABC's MOONLIGHTING (a rift on Dashiell Hammett's THE THIN MAN) and SPENSER: FOR HIRE starring Robert Urich as Robert B. Parker's venerable Boston sleuth; ... all of this in the same year! The most intriguing of the new lot however was CBS's THE EQUALIZER - co-created by writers Michael Sloan (COLUMBO, QUINCY, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) and Richard Lindheim (B.J. AND THE BEAR). Starring BREAKER MORANT's Edward Woodward (a veteran of The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts as well as West End and Broadway theater), he was part Paul Kersey from DEATH WISH, part Simon Templar from THE SAINT, and part James Bond as Robert McCall - former member of "The Agency" (an unspecified American intel division), who seeks to atone for past sins by lending his services gratis to average New Yorker Joes and Janes finding themselves up against imbalanced odds, be it from street thugs, corrupt police, terrorists (foreign and domestic) or even black ops operatives crossed into the civilian sector.
Perhaps topping THE LOVE BOAT and MURDER SHE WROTE for it's impressive list of established (and up-and-coming) guest stars, over it's four season run THE EQUALIZER featured appearances by Robert Mitchum & Richard Jordan (re-teamed after THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE and THE YAKUZA; and together temporarily filling in for Woodward whilst he recovered from a 1987 heart attack), Kevin Spacey, Bradley Whitford, Lawrence Fishburne, Patricia Clarkson, E.G. Marshall, Ving Rhames, Stanley Tucci, Anthony Zerbe, THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK's Robin Curtis, and even musicians taking a stab at acting including Meat Loaf, Adam Ant, The Beastie Boys' Adam Horovitz and series composer himself Stewart Copeland in a humorous "blink and you'll miss it" one episode cameo as a pickpocket.
As mentioned in our earlier WALL STREET TunePlay suite ( • TunePlay - WALL STREET (1987) Stewart... ), Copeland was born in 1952. The son of CIA officer Miles Copeland, Jr., he took up the drums at 12, was raised internationally in Cairo, Beirut, the U.S. and England; and throughout the 1970s alternately worked as road manager and backup drummer for various groups until founding in 1977, along with Sting and Henry Padovani (later replaced by Andy Summers), the progressive rock band THE POLICE. Copeland's first assignment in film was Francis Ford Coppola's RUMBLE FISH (1983). Then after THE POLICE went on "extended hiatus" in '86, the drummer with a composer's sensibilities dove headlong into scoring - to this day one of his most notable works as musical voice of THE EQUALIZER, on which he'd compose an astounding 51 of the series' 88 total episodes.
THE EQUALIZER introduced Copeland's stunningly unique sound to the mainstream audience; and it would simultaneously launch his career as a soloist. In keeping with the series' "mash up" (before that phrase was coined) concept of "tradition merged with new aged high tech", Copeland's musical accompaniment would a) with the exception of McCall himself, forgo the Wagnerian structure of identifiable leitmotifs, and instead choose to score the city of New York itself as a primary character; and b) fuse classical structure with the (some considered "sacrilegious" at the time) combo of "percussion carrying melody and synthesized strings" attached to world rhythms (Lebanese and Reggae influenced), then introduced via the early break-beat "sampling" technology of the day. Copeland's would be a coldly ethereal yet dense "urban ballet" sound inexorably linked to the modern cityscape. And it would years later influence composers such as Hans Zimmer, Thomas Newman and more.
Excerpted from the 1988 album "THE EQUALIZER And Other Cliffhangers" our TunePlay suite is taken from an analog source, and as such may contain some mild audio distortion.
CEJ
1) The Equalizer Busy Equalizing - Theme from THE EQUALIZER (0:00 of 14:55)
2) Screaming Lord Cole And The Commanches (3:16 of 14:55)
3) Lurking Solo (7:55 of 14:55)
4) Music Box (12:36 of 14:55)
For more "TunePlay" mini movie music suites go to http://www.gullcottageonline.com/Tune...
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