Alan Hawkshaw

by Andy KellmanSession keyboardist and arranger Alan Hawkshaw has worked with Serge Gainsbourg, Jane Birkin, Dusty Springfield, Barbra Streisand, and Olivia Newton-John. Just as notably, Hawkshaw was a member of Love & Kisses, a campy late '70s disco outfit that released a trio of albums on Casablanca and scored the theme song for the movie Thank God It's Friday. Earlier in his career, he was in Emile Ford's Checkmates and also spent a brief time in the Shadows during the early '70s, playing on their "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue."
Hawkshaw has also done plenty of admirable work on his own. In addition to releasing a number of solo records since the late '70s, he has scored a number of television themes for British television, including those for Countdown, Love Hurts, and Grange Hill. His score for 1979's The Silent Witness won the Ivor Novello Award.