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Brian Laurance Bennett (born 9 February 1940, in Palmers Green, North London, England) is a drummer, pianist, composer, arranger and record producer of popular music. He is best known as the drummer of the UK rock and roll group, The Shadows.
Biography
Educated at Hazlewood School, Palmers Green and Winchmore Hill School, he left at the age of sixteen to play drums in a skiffle group for holiday makers in Ramsgate. After returning to London and playing in several groups, he became a member of Marty Wilde's Wildcats in 1959. After a successful period with the Wildcats, during which he appeared on their instrumental record without Wilde (recorded as the Krew Kats), "Trambone", he backed Tommy Steele for some of his London stage performances, and in October 1961 he joined The Shadows as the replacement for Tony Meehan.
He stayed with the group for all their subsequent line-ups, and as of May 2005 was taking part in an European tour. As well as his work with the Shadows he is also a prolific composer, particularly of soundtrack music for films and television programmes, including The Ruth Rendell Mysteries and Pulaski. He also appeared in Cliff Richard's backing band and plays piano and occasionally vibraphone.
Two of his most famous works were "The Journey" and "Just a Minute", used for the ITV Schools on 4 broadcasts between 1987 and 1993. He has composed many popular TV theme tunes including BBC's "Rugby Special", sitcoms "Robin's Nest" and Birds of a Feather, "New Tricks" and "Murder in Mind". Probably one of his most recognisable themes is the BBC Golf theme ("Chase Side Shoot Up").
He is also an orchestral conductor, having learned how to arrange and conduct music for orchestras from a correspondence course. His son Warren Bennett formerly played keyboards for the band Glass Ties, and is also a composer and producer.