Johnny Hawksworth is a British

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...

 musician and composer who has lived and worked 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...

 since 1984.

Hawksworth initially trained as a pianist, but also played double bass

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

 for Britain's leading big band the Ted Heath Orchestra

Ted Heath (bandleader)

Ted Heath, musician and big band leader, led Britain's greatest post-war big band recording more than 100 albums and selling over 20 million records...

 during the early 1950s and through the 1960s. During this time he became one of the most popular jazz bassists in the UK, winning many polls and was often featured as a soloist on Heath concerts and recordings. He is probably best known, however, for his short compositions for television. These include Salute to Thames (the famous identity tune for Thames Television

Thames Television

Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....

) and also the theme tunes for the 1970s series Roobarb

Roobarb

Roobarb is a British animated television programme for children, originally shown on BBC1 just before the evening news. Each cartoon, written by Grange Calveley and animated by Bob Godfrey, was about five minutes long. Thirty episodes were made, and the show was first shown on October 21, 1974...

, George and Mildred

George and Mildred

George and Mildred is a British sitcom produced by Thames Television that aired from 1976 to 1979. It was a spin-off from Man About the House and starred Brian Murphy and Yootha Joyce as an ill-matched married couple, George and Mildred Roper...

and Man About the House

Man About the House

Man About the House is a British sitcom starring Richard O'Sullivan, Paula Wilcox and Sally Thomsett that was broadcast for six seasons on ITV from 1973 to 1976. It was created and written by Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke. The series was considered daring at the time due to its subject matter of...

. He also contributed some of the incidental music used in the 1967 Spider-Man

Spider-Man

Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...

cartoon. (Although originating from the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, Spider-Man had most of its incidental music supplied by Irish composers, such as Phil Coulter

Phil Coulter

Phil Coulter is an artist with an international reputation as a successful songwriter, pianist, music producer, arranger and director. His success has spanned four decades and he is one of the biggest record sellers in Ireland...

, and British including Syd Dale

Syd Dale

Syd Dale was born in York, England. He was a self taught composer and arranger of funk, easy listening and library music. His music played an important role on TV, radio and advertising media of the 1960s and 1970s. It is still extensively used today.Syd Dale started as an apprentice engineer at...

, Alan Hawkshaw

Alan Hawkshaw

Alan Hawkshaw is a British composer and performer, particularly of themes for movies and television programmes...

, David Lindup

David Lindup

David Lindup was an English composer, arranger and orchestrator best known for his collaborations with Johnny Dankworth and his library music...

, Bill Martin

Bill Martin

Bill Martin is a Scottish songwriter, music publisher and impresario.-Biography:...

 and Johnny Pearson

Johnny Pearson

John Valmore Pearson known as Johnny Pearson, was a British composer, orchestra leader and pianist...

.)

Hawksworth has also written many pieces of stock music for the De Wolfe Music

De Wolfe Music

De Wolfe Music is the originator of what has become known as production music as it was established in 1909 and began its recorded library in 1927 with the advent of 'Talkies'. The library consists of over 80,000 tracks, all pre-cleared for licensing and synchronisation...

library. He also provided the hypnotic musical soundtrack to Geoffrey Jones' classic British Transport Film "Snow" (1963).