High Wire / Theme From Danger Man
Secret Agent Soundtrack
The song “High Wire” was actually not the original theme to Danger Man, which originally featured a voiceover with John Drake explaining his position with NATO over top of some fairly generic big band jazz. The second season aired two years later, and with quite a bit of reworking. John Drake was now a British agent, episodes were now an hour in length, and there was a new, hip theme song: “High Wire” by Edwin Astley.
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Astley, composer of other themes like The Saint and The Baron, and one-time father-in-law to Who guitarist Pete Townsend, took on the Danger Man theme with a playful harpischord and a hard-driving horn section. I consider the song far superior to the theme used in the American version, “Secret Agent Man,” written by Barri/Sloan and sung by Johnny Rivers (which, nonetheless, we’ll be featuring as our tab-of-the week seven days from now).
In 2001, Jools Holland produced a TV documentary on Astley’s life and work, called Astley’s Way, which I’d love to see, if anyone has a copy sitting around.
Here’s a video tribute to Danger Man featuring the .45 single version of the song. Play along at home!
