Posted on Sunday, 9th April, 2023 by Paul Rodgers
Stu Phillips has had a long and distinguished career in music. At 93 he's done it all - conducted orchestras, produced albums for the likes of Nina Simone and The Monkees, scored cult classic films like Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and composed iconic themes and scores for classic television. It's probably the later that most of us here will know Stu - by creating the music for Knight Rider, Battlestar Galactica, The Fall Guy and Spider-man (just to name a few) he provided the soundtrack to the lives of us who were lucky enough to grow up in late 70's and 80's.
By the time the first season of Spider-man came along Stu already had a 20-year career in the film and television. So it's no suprise that he would be approached to provide the music for the Spider-man series.
As Stu recalls, "The director of the first episode [The Deadly Dust] was Ron Satlof. He and I had worked together previously and we were good friends. He asked for me to do his episode. The producers were pleased with my work and had me do the rest of the season." Although Spider-man had only be around for about 16 years at this point Stu was very much aware of him from the comics.
As fans of the series will be aware, Johnnie Spence scored the pilot episode. When it came to writing the music for season one Spence's themes and motifs were never considered - "it was always going to be my music from the start".
Of creating the music for Spider-man Stu says "I tried to be inventive, so I used a lot of weird percussion instruments - things like the Blaster Beam! Synthesisers were used here and there but not too much.". For those that don't know, the Blaster Beam is a 12 - 18 ft long electric instrument that was created by John Lazelle in the early 70's. However Craig Huxley created his own version - using it most notably in Star Trek: the Motion Picture.
"I went to Craig’s studio where he gave me a demonstration of the beam. I rented it from him for the session, but don’t recall if I hired him to play it...I had other percussion players on the date." It's worth noting that Craig Huxley worked on the pilot episode with Johnnie Spence to create the strange hypnotic brain wave effects.
The first season of Spider-man was a little more fantastical than season 2 with a greater emphasis on sci-fi and the supernatural. It allowed Stu to be creative and incorporate other genres into the music - notibly when giving his Spider-man theme a 'cowboy/western' slant in the Deadly Dust episode when the characters are in the 'old west' set. "It was always fun to do this. I did it a lot on The Fall Guy show too."
There is also a little easter egg hidden in the main theme, "If you sing the first three notes of the theme, it goes: SPI-DER-MAN."
"The instrumentation changed from show to show. If I remember correctly, I think I recorded at TTG Studios. The owner and engineer was Ami Hadani. It was located in Hollywood. Given the time this took place, for sure it was in at least two track stereo and most likely three track."
This time period was a very busy one for Stu and he found he didn't have time to meet with the cast and crew. "I had a lot on my plate those days, so there was no time for socializing!"
Obviously he didn't return to work on the second season - "They changed producers and also revamped the show, and I guess felt that I wasn’t able to switch gears into a more jazzy sound. Galactica was on the horizon, so I really didn’t care."
In the many years that have passed since the series aired fans have been asking for a release of the shows music. Sadly to this day, that hasn't happened - but it's not for lack of trying on Stu's part. "From around 2010 until 2013 there were efforts to get the Spider-man music released on CD. Bruce Kimmel at Kritzerland Records was interested in releasing it. But first I had to find out who owned the rights. When I finally, after many weeks of trying, spoke to the rights holders lawyers, they were reluctant to give me or Kritzerland a 5 year license as they had the Spider-man features to contend with and didn’t want any obstacles to get in the way of dealing with them.
Meanwhile, Bruce and I had found the tapes and other material at MGM Studios. They were ready to make transfers for us as soon as we could show them a license… which we couldn’t. So much for that."
All in all, Stu had a good experience working on the series, "In all honesty, I really don’t recall any incidents or challenges. I did my job and was mostly pleased with what I wrote."
I'd like to thank Stu for his time in chatting with me. I'm hopeful we'll hear his, Johnnie and Dana's music how it was intended before too long. You can find out more about Stu's career and life at his personal website www.stuwho.com
