Thunderbirds : Main Theme + Closer : Hi Fi Mono

Probably the most well know countdown in popular culture 5 4 3 2 1 Thunderbirds Are Go !
I used to watch this before going to school in the early 70’s and it always engaged my imagination that and the distinctive music, I would say 50% of what made the Thunderbirds was the music of Barry Gray, a quiet, unassuming man who lived and breathed music and life into many TV shows of this genre.
It’s interesting to see a post war generation looking into the future, to a fairly idealistic world where space habitation is integrated into the fabric of life, the good verses evil aspect is still universal and trying to live peacefully under a United Nations type scenario.
Gerry Anderson was inspired by the events that happened on 7 November 1963, 11 West German miners were rescued from a collapsed mine after surviving for 14 days, an event that later became known as the Wunder von Lengede ("miracle of Lengede")
Story has it, that it was decided the best way to rescue the men was to use a special drill to bore a large hole to go deep enough and then lower a capsule to bring each person up, one at a time…. sounds like a Thunderbird story line … real life inspires imagination and a sense of humanity.
I think today we need an International Rescue, not just on a physical aspect but some apolitical body organisation to oversee world peace … oh yea, I guess It has been done before but the idea has faded due to rampant selfish ideals.
At its core, Thunderbirds had a humanist aspect, the elaborate gadgets were an accessory to life, not the master, Thunderbirds got it pretty close to the overall communications side with hand held devices and always on communications, as we do today.
Thunderbirds is showing its age now but the absolute care and detail of the sets and puppets and the cinematic aspect to this TV show from 1965 plus the endearing characters and storylines, just take you to another place in a very elegant and smart fashion.
I’m not a fan of the new Thunderbirds, too brash, cocky, smart ass and probably more surface level characters bordering on shallow, high tech low imagination, Thunderbirds was comparatively low tech with high imagination.
Let me qualify that observation by saying, everything that Thunderbirds created on screen had to be made physically from scratch, absolute hours of dedication and hard work to get that aspect of perceived realism plus detail and we the audience, suspend disbelief, even if you see a few wires in the background because the show was made with quality in mind, heart and was entertaining.
There are many incarnations of the Thunderbird theme on U Tube and all I noticed are either really low bit rate or a standard film soundtrack is used, it’s not always a satisfying experience.
So from the 2003 Silva Screen CD release is the main title and closing credits in Hi Fi Mono.
The story goes that a large collection of boxed tapes and some equipment retrieved in 1993, had been dumped in a Chelsea garage and poorly stored with mould and mildew all over the place.
Thank god someone had the idea to do something with the estate of Barry Gray and retrieve this legacy of recorded music, catalogue and archive the tapes and not just Thunderbirds music but every other kind of show Barry Gray had created music for production use.
The sound quality here is quite good but you can hear the limitation of 60’s magnetic recording but that said, it’s not too shabby.
Back in the day a lot of production pieces from TV Cinema and radio weren’t given much thought in terms of preserving a legacy.
The two 2003 Thunderbirds music CDs are out of print, you can find them on line but at a high price but Silva Screen has released a CD compile from the original TV soundtrack.
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