Warren Barker

* Born 16 April 1923, Oakland, California * Died 3 August 2006, Greenville, South Carolina Cover 'Warren Barker is In!' LPBest known for his jazzy score and best-selling soundtrack album from the television series, "77 Sunset Strip", Barker played piano and trumpet in school and then attended UCLA, where he studied under the composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. After serving in the Army Air Corps, where he played in a band, he returned to Los Angeles and began a long association with radio, television, and movie studios. He worked as staff director for Warner Borthers Record for nearly a dozen years, leaving in 1960 to focus on television work. His TV credits include musical direction for the TV series "Hawaiian Eye" and orchestrations for such Nick-at-Night classics as "Bewtiched," "Daktari," "That Girl," and "The Flying Nun"--including that little xylophone thing that plays whenever Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) wiggles her nose to cast a spell. He imprinted a bit of 1970s cultural history into a generation's genetic code with his theme for the "Donny and Marie Osmond Show," "A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Rock-n-Roll." Barker also wrote the scores for the films Strange Lovers and The Zebra in the Kitchen. He retired from the studio scene in the early 1980s and devoted his time thereafter to writing and conducting original compositions for concert bands and wind ensembles. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.