John Keating (musician)

John Keating (born 10 September 1927, Edinburgh, Scotland) is a Scottish musician, songwriter and arranger.

After studying piano and trombone, he taught himself how to arrange and compose in his teens. He went to work with British big band leader Ted Heath in 1952 as a trombone player, but within two years Heath asked him to become his primary arranger. In the early 1960s, he and songwriter Johnny Worth (writing as "Les Vandyke") masterminded the career of a minor British pop star, Eden Kane. The team wrote and produced a string of British top 10 hits for Kane in 1961-63. In addition he wrote, produced or arranged hits by Adam Faith, Petula Clark, Anthony Newley, Sammy Davis Jr and many others.

Keating arranged and conducted a series of albums for London's Phase 4 series, notable for its use of synthesiser technology such as the Moog synthesizer and the EMS VCS 3. The records were often used as demonstration discs in the 1970s in Hi-Fi stores because of their quality. Much of his work was rereleased following the Lounge music revival of the mid 1990s and its use as breakbeats.

His song "Bunny Hop" is featured in the 1994 Tim Burton film, Ed Wood.

His "Theme from Z-Cars", a #5 hit in the UK Singles Chart, was adopted by Everton as their theme song and remains so to this day.

As founder and principal of the Johnny Keating School of Music, Edinburgh, he has been directly...
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