Song:Hill Street Blues
Album:NYPD Blue: The Best Of Mike Post
We all love TV themes and Mike Post may be the most successful and prolific composer of TV theme music especially for cop shows. Hill Street Blues is one of his two top ten pop hits. He was born Leland Michael Postil Sept. 29, 1944 in San Fernando, CA. He started out working with Los Angeles girl group The Murmaids and then worked with the garage band The Outcasts. He also had his own group called The Wellingbrook Singers. His work as a Los Angeles studio musician in the 60s included stints with Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. He played guitar on Sonny & Cher's I Got You Babe and produced Kenny Rogers & The First Edition's hit Just Dropped In. And he also won a Grammy for his arrangements on The Mason Williams Phonograph Record. In 1968 he became musical director of The Andy Williams Show and it was here that he met trombone player Pete Carpenter. The duo would work together until Carpenter's death in 1987. His first TV theme was for Stephen J. Cannell's shortlived 1973 series Toma. Cannell cancelled Toma because of a writer's strike and decided to produce The Rockford Files instead. The theme from that show would become Mike Post's first top ten hit and he won a Grammy. He also produced the #1 hit theme for The Greatest American Hero for Joey Scarbury. Post became the go to guy for TV music especially for producers Cannell and Steven Bochco. The theme from Hill Street Blues featuring guitarist Larry Carlton reached #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1981 and won Post four Grammys. He has continued to write plenty of TV music most significantly for the Law & Order franchise. In 1994, he was awarded BMI's Richard Kirk Award recognizing his contribution to TV music. You can get 15 of Post's themes on this CD from the film music label Silva America. Here's the theme for Hill Street Blues as it played over the opening credits.
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