Catacombs Credits Guide
Alan Willis

The fondest memories I have of Space: 1999 are of working with composer Barry Gray, I got on with Barry like I'd known him for years. He always talked in film terms and we met up one day and went to the pub and he told me, "Do you know, I feel like I've known you for thousands of feet!" We had a very close relationship and became great friends.

I missed Barry on the second season of Space: 1999, although that did allow me to meet Derek Wadsworth for the first time, and I had quite a hand in actually choosing Derek. But Barry and I were just so good together. He never used to come across to the studios at first, so I had to go to see him on Guernsey. Eventually we were able to do the whole thing over the phone - I would send him my notes and we would meet at the recording session. It wasn't that he didn't care, but he knew exactly what to do from what I gave him,

Derek's style is more modern. If you were to give eighty classical musicians to Barry, it would come out beautifully, like a classical piece. This may have been what the American backers found a bit heavy for Space: 1999, I don't know. Give the same orchestra to Derek and you would get a totally different feel, more punchy and modern. I liked both styles, but I preferred the depth in Barry's music. I like the idea of a little chap like Barry up there on the podium, writing and composing this wall of sound!

The only other musician credited on Space: 1999 was Vic Elms, the series' 'Musical Associate'. But truthfully, he did virtually nothing. What happened was that he was the husband of Sylvia Anderson's daughter from Sylvia's first marriage. He was introduced to me by Gerry as an "up and coming pop musician", but his claim to fame was, in fact, that he sang on the number one hit 'Yellow River' with his group Christie, As producer, Sylvia asked me to meet Vic and ask him to write the music for an episode on his own. Unfortunately, Vic couldn't read music. He could bash out a good pop tune in ten minutes, but he couldn't read music.

So when he came to do an episode, we ran-the film for him and I was telling him his cues, and then I said, "Right, here are the notes. Go and write the music." "What do I need notes for?" he asked, so I explained about the timings and he said, "Just give me the beginning and end times and I'll see if I can write you a song the right length," Now, this episode began with a really long pan across the Moon, and I said that we needed something to really set the mood - we couldn't just come in with 'Yellow River' or something!

Naturally, Vic got very worried about this, so I got together with him, since I had a few ideas - although I'd never written anything in my life. I explained the situation to Gerry, who asked me to help out in any way I could. We ended up using all my ideas, as Vic wanted lots of loud poppy guitars and no violins.

We eventually got to the recording session with a ream of paper with notes on it - writing, not music. I explained to Vic that someone had to go up and conduct, as the musicians wouldn't even lift an elbow until somebody tapped a baton, Vic asked me to do it since he didn't know how, and I knew the musicians. I ended up going onto the stand, but since I'm a musician but not a composer, I had to actually describe what I wanted the orchestra to do. We got something out of the session, but not enough for a whole episode and I had to add bits of Barry's music. The episode was Ring Around The Moon and Vic wasn't asked to do any more music after that.