In 1971, when the BBC chat show Parkinson began, its host, Michael Parkinson, asked his friend Laurie Holloway to be the musical director. “I unfortunately had to refuse because I was engaged to be the musical director for Engelbert Humperdinck,” said Holloway, who has died aged 86. “We stayed good friends although I had to turn the offer down.”
Holloway, a renowned jazz pianist who had accompanied Cleo Laine on stage and was at one time a member of her husband John Dankworth’s band, worked with Humperdinck between 1970 and 1975 on tours of the US and TV shows on both sides of the Atlantic – as well as studio recordings – while Harry Stoneham became the Parkinson show’s musical director and composer of its theme tune, one of the most recognisable on TV.
