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This week: Host John Semper Jr. with Part 2 of the John Altman interview.
(If you missed it, you can hear Part 1 on the Listen Page of our website.)
The Experience Talks Online podcast of this interview has been so well received that we’ve decided to put it on the air so more people will hear it. In this second part of our conversation with John Altman, he talks about his work with Neil Innes on “The Rutles,” “The Secret Policeman’s Ball,” his TV and film scoring career, and much more.
John Altman is an Emmy Award-winning British composer, arranger, orchestrator, and conductor. Born in London, Altman was introduced to the music of the 1930s and 1940s at an early age by an uncle who arranged and composed music for big bands and conducted for Judy Garland, the Marx Brothers, and Laurel and Hardy, among others. His only formal musical training was piano lessons as a child, but he found he had inherited the “music gene” which allowed him to understand music and play multiple instruments easily. While enrolled at the University of Sussex he was involved in session work and gigs with Fleetwood Mac and Nico. He also played saxophone in rock bands and with blues and jazz groups with such artists as Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Little Richard, and Van Morrison.
In the mid-1970s, Altman began arranging and conducting, and worked with Rod Stewart, George Michael, Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Graham Parker, and Monty Python. For the latter, he arranged the music for their Rutles television special and later contributed to The Life of Brian, most notably as the co-writer and arranger of the song, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”
Altman also frequently has been a guest conductor for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and is a prolific writer of music for commercials, having scored more than 4,000 international ads.
The John Altman Big Band often performs in the US and UK.
