George Greeley recorded over 200 custom recordings distributed to broadcasters through his company "George Greeley Productions," (GGP).
According to Forrest Patton, "George recorded this series in Ireland with Phil Green conducting the orchestra."
"Many of those tracks appeared in the Bonneville packages as the "Ridgewood Strings." Marlin Taylor also created a minor hit by programming Mr. Greeley's recording of "Love Music from Tristan And Isolde" from the Warner Bros. album 'The World's Greatest Love Themes'."
Bill Wertz says, "We did custom one-on-one recordings with George, then had one session before Bob Chandler took over the reins as creative director for IBMA, and then partnered for additional recordings through Jim Schlicting's company."
George Greeley recorded over 200 custom songs in this series, 129 of which were distributed across 11 custom LPs called "Just Beautiful Music" by GGP.
Later some of these songs were released to the consumer market by RCA.
Custom recordings:
The biography below was excerpted from "George Greeley, 89; composer wrote theme for ‘My Favorite Martian’" by Dennis McLellan, The Los Angeles Times, May 31, 2007.
George Greeley was a pianist, conductor, composer and arranger who composed the theme music for television’s “My Favorite Martian.”
As staff pianist at Columbia Pictures in the 1950s, Greeley performed on hundreds of motion pictures. He also worked as a composer and orchestrator at the studio.
Born July 23, 1917, in Westerly, R.I., Greeley was taught by his musician-father to read music at an early age and was playing piano at age 5. He studied piano and music composition on a scholarship to the Juilliard School in New York,
where he graduated in 1939.
He arranged music for several popular bands, including the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, before spending World War II conducting an Army Air Forces band at the Santa Ana Army Air Base. After the war, he wrote arrangements for a number of radio shows before joining Columbia Pictures.
At Capitol Records, he was a music director and arranger for Gordon MacRae, Jane Powell and Jane Froman, among others.
“He was an extraordinary pianist,” said Jon Burlingame, who teaches a class on the history of film scoring at USC. While at Columbia, Burlingame said, Greeley played the piano for the Leonard Bernstein score for the classic 1954 drama “On the Waterfront.”
As a recording artist for Warner Bros. Records, Greeley produced and performed on 15 albums for piano and full orchestra, including “George Greeley Plays George Gershwin.”
Moving into television in the 1960s, Greeley wrote the musical themes and underscores for “My Favorite Martian,” starring Ray Walston and Bill Bixby, and “My Living Doll,” starring Robert Cummings and Julie Newmar. He also wrote background music for “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” and “Nanny and the Professor.”
