Eric Jupp
Encyclopedia
Eric Jupp was a British
-born musician
, composer
, arranger and conductor
who gained wide popularity in Australia
after settling there in the 1960s, hosting a long-running light music TV show and composing for film and TV. He is best remembered for his theme music to the TV series Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
.
in 1922 and began to study piano
at seven. He left school and started his musical career at fourteen, playing in nightclubs. He joined the R.A.F. at the outbreak of World War II
. When the war ended, he went to London, where he soon became a prominent member of several leading big band
s, working as a pianist, composer and arranger.
Jupp worked as an arranger for both of Britain's top bandleaders of the period, Stanley Black
and Ted Heath. Heath's all-star staff of arrangers included Jupp, John Dankworth
, George Shearing
and Wally Stott (later the musical director of The Goon Show
). As pianist and arranger Jupp was also a long-serving member of the Oscar Rabin Band
, one of Britain's most popular dance orchestras of that period.
In 1951 Jupp formed his own orchestra at the request of the BBC
and began making regular radio broadcasts and also appeared in the Hammer Films TV series Bands On Parade. He began writing music for films in Britain, beginning with the crime drama The Secret Place (1957). Jupp first visited Australia in 1960 under short-term contract to the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), and during his visit he arranged the music for the single First Kiss / My Secret (July 1960) by pop duo the Allen Brothers, which included Peter Allen
.
Jupp returned to England later in the year but in 1961 he was invited to join the ABC as musical director of its light entertainment department, based in Sydney
. Soon after taking up his new post he formed the Eric Jupp Orchestra and launched his popular and long-running weekly ABC-TV series The Magic of Music, which was seen in 29 countries and ran from 1961 to 1974. The series featured mainly "orchestral pops" and light classicaI music, but it also included regular jazz segments featuring notable Australian performers such as Don Burrows
and George Golla
.
The success of the series led to a contract with EMI
's Columbia label and a string of popular "Magic of Music" LPs that continued to the mid 1970s. The LPs (and the show) often featured vocalists Shirley McDonald, (whom Jupp married in the 1960s) and Neil Williams.
Jupp soon made a name for himself as a leading composer for film and TV in Australia. Undoubtedly his best-remembered composition is the theme for the hugely popular 1960s TV series Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
. The long version (the B-side
on the record
) has lyrics
written by Ted Roberts
.
In early 1968 Jupp moved to Norfolk Island
, commuting by air to the mainland for his TV, radio and film work.
Among his later film and television credits, Jupp was the music director for the 1971 Fauna Productions adventure series Barrier Reef. He composed music for the TV series Bailey's Bird (1977) and wrote the score for Michael Pate's 1979 film version of Colleen McCullough
's first novel, Tim
, starring the then unknown Mel Gibson
. It was Jupp who convinced McCullough to settle on the island after she shot to fame with her second novel, The Thorn Birds
.
His last major TV credit was the score for the early 1990s remake of Skippy. In his retirement, Jupp and his family moved to Launceston in Tasmania
. He died there in January 2003, after battling illness for several months. He was survived by his third wife Anita, his two daughters Linda and Catherine, six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
-born musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
, composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, arranger and conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
who gained wide popularity in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
after settling there in the 1960s, hosting a long-running light music TV show and composing for film and TV. He is best remembered for his theme music to the TV series Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo is an Australian television series for children created by John McCallum, produced from 1966–1968, telling the adventures of a young boy and his intelligent pet kangaroo, in the Waratah National Park in Duffys Forest, near Sydney, New South Wales.Ninety-one 30-minute...
.
Biography
Jupp was born in BrightonBrighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
in 1922 and began to study piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
at seven. He left school and started his musical career at fourteen, playing in nightclubs. He joined the R.A.F. at the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. When the war ended, he went to London, where he soon became a prominent member of several leading big band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
s, working as a pianist, composer and arranger.
Jupp worked as an arranger for both of Britain's top bandleaders of the period, Stanley Black
Stanley Black
Stanley Black OBE was an English Bandleader, Composer, conductor, arranger and pianist. He wrote and arranged many film scores and recorded prolifically for the Decca label...
and Ted Heath. Heath's all-star staff of arrangers included Jupp, John Dankworth
John Dankworth
Sir John Phillip William Dankworth, CBE , known in his early career as Johnny Dankworth, was an English jazz composer, saxophonist and clarinetist...
, George Shearing
George Shearing
Sir George Shearing, OBE was an Anglo-American jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for MGM Records and Capitol Records. The composer of over 300 titles, he had multiple albums on the Billboard charts during the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s...
and Wally Stott (later the musical director of The Goon Show
The Goon Show
The Goon Show was a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme...
). As pianist and arranger Jupp was also a long-serving member of the Oscar Rabin Band
Oscar Rabin Band
The Oscar Rabin Band was a British Jazz dance band that was one of the most successful bands of the 1950s. Band leader Oscar Rabin played bass saxophone, an unusual instrument then as now. His friend Harry Davis, tall, elegant and good-looking, acted as compère and conductor.-Formation:Oscar...
, one of Britain's most popular dance orchestras of that period.
In 1951 Jupp formed his own orchestra at the request of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
and began making regular radio broadcasts and also appeared in the Hammer Films TV series Bands On Parade. He began writing music for films in Britain, beginning with the crime drama The Secret Place (1957). Jupp first visited Australia in 1960 under short-term contract to the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), and during his visit he arranged the music for the single First Kiss / My Secret (July 1960) by pop duo the Allen Brothers, which included Peter Allen
Peter Allen
Peter Allen was an Australian songwriter and entertainer. His songs were made popular by many recording artists, including Elkie Brooks, Melissa Manchester and Olivia Newton-John, with one, Arthur's Theme, winning an Academy Award in 1981...
.
Jupp returned to England later in the year but in 1961 he was invited to join the ABC as musical director of its light entertainment department, based in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
. Soon after taking up his new post he formed the Eric Jupp Orchestra and launched his popular and long-running weekly ABC-TV series The Magic of Music, which was seen in 29 countries and ran from 1961 to 1974. The series featured mainly "orchestral pops" and light classicaI music, but it also included regular jazz segments featuring notable Australian performers such as Don Burrows
Don Burrows
Donald Vernon Burrows, AO, MBE is an Australian jazz and swing musician, playing the clarinet, saxophone, and flute....
and George Golla
George Golla
George Golla AM is an Australian jazz guitarist. In 1959 he commenced a long-term working musical partnership with clarinetist/flautist/saxophonist Don Burrows that continued for almost forty years. On 10 June 1985, Golla was made a Member of the Order of Australia with the citation, For service...
.
The success of the series led to a contract with EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
's Columbia label and a string of popular "Magic of Music" LPs that continued to the mid 1970s. The LPs (and the show) often featured vocalists Shirley McDonald, (whom Jupp married in the 1960s) and Neil Williams.
Jupp soon made a name for himself as a leading composer for film and TV in Australia. Undoubtedly his best-remembered composition is the theme for the hugely popular 1960s TV series Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo is an Australian television series for children created by John McCallum, produced from 1966–1968, telling the adventures of a young boy and his intelligent pet kangaroo, in the Waratah National Park in Duffys Forest, near Sydney, New South Wales.Ninety-one 30-minute...
. The long version (the B-side
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
on the record
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
) has lyrics
Lyrics
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...
written by Ted Roberts
Ted Roberts
Ted Roberts is an Australian television screenwriter and supervising producer.After completing his education at Marist Brothers College in Randwick, Roberts worked in advertising and sales promotion before commencing his career as a freelance writer for television and filmTed Roberts began his...
.
In early 1968 Jupp moved to Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island is a small island in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia. The island is part of the Commonwealth of Australia, but it enjoys a large degree of self-governance...
, commuting by air to the mainland for his TV, radio and film work.
Among his later film and television credits, Jupp was the music director for the 1971 Fauna Productions adventure series Barrier Reef. He composed music for the TV series Bailey's Bird (1977) and wrote the score for Michael Pate's 1979 film version of Colleen McCullough
Colleen McCullough
Colleen McCullough-Robinson, , is an internationally acclaimed Australian author.-Life:McCullough was born in Wellington, in outback central west New South Wales, in 1937 to James and Laurie McCullough. Her mother was a New Zealander of part-Māori descent. During her childhood, her family moved...
's first novel, Tim
Tim (film)
Tim is an Australian romantic drama film. Released in 1979, it was written and directed by Michael Pate, based on the 1974 novel by Colleen McCullough....
, starring the then unknown Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
. It was Jupp who convinced McCullough to settle on the island after she shot to fame with her second novel, The Thorn Birds
The Thorn Birds
The Thorn Birds is a 1977 best-selling novel by Colleen McCullough, an Australian author.In 1983 it was adapted as a television mini-series that, during its television run 27–30 March, became the United States' second highest rated mini-series of all time behind Roots; both series were produced by...
.
His last major TV credit was the score for the early 1990s remake of Skippy. In his retirement, Jupp and his family moved to Launceston in Tasmania
Launceston, Tasmania
Launceston is a city in the north of the state of Tasmania, Australia at the junction of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River. Launceston is the second largest city in Tasmania after the state capital Hobart...
. He died there in January 2003, after battling illness for several months. He was survived by his third wife Anita, his two daughters Linda and Catherine, six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.