William Lava TV and Film Composer(1911-1971)

William Lava TV and Film Composer(1911-1971)

Today I want to rap about one of my favorite tv backround composers of yesteryear..
HIs name was William Lava....A creative, yet true name..I first became familiar with the name William Lava when I started watching television programs produced by WB for ABC-TV in the early 60's.
His name most often popped up on the Television program Cheyenne, a beautiful tv western starring Clint Walker.
MAny an afternoon on rerun when televeion was mainly black and white, and didnt mind showing reruns of non color tv shows, I would get installments of preveiously aired programs of Cheyenne...so for an hour I'd sit and watch as "Cheyenne Bodie" drifted through various towns and situations often taking temporary jobs - sometimes as a lawman, sometimes as a bonty hunter, whatever he could find unusally involving
interaction with people. During the action, or tense parts of the programs Mister Lava's score graced my 12" audio speaker located directly below this humongous 27" television set, and provided some fat, turgid brass and string chords, most often utilizing a low piano chord to meld the dissonance together...
Often during a chase, his real "b" like fast moving violin figures rhapsodized over indians attacking a fort, or bad guys riding horses shooting at each other...wonderful stuff!
Not only did he score the episodes, but at the beginning and end we got to hear his wonderful theme song sung by the Disney bunch, Thurl Ravenscroft, Bill Lee and company.(4 or 5 guys intoning in unison "Cheyenne, Cheyenne"...)

Later on having become a composer myself, and trying to investigate the backround of Bill Lava, it is seen that not much is found on the web about him...just the sketchiest of information which I will present here.
Willam B. LAva was born on Mar 18, 1911 in St.PAul, Minn.and attended Northwestern University, probably in the late 20's...Arriving in Hollywood in about 1936, Bill proceeded to score many westerns at Republic, and later did much composing, often uncredited at WB. Bill also worked in radio. One of the partial scores he worked for at WB was "Action In The North Atlantic"...
In the mid fifties Disney hired him to write music for the Mickey MOuse Club action series, such as The Hardy Boys, as well as some scores for Zorro.
During the period of the late fifties, thru the mid 60's he became inundated scoring many tv shows for WB including the Theme and scores for Cheyenne and F Troop, while at the same time taking over the composing chores for the WB Cartoons. Not only THAT, but also working for Paramount as a music supervisor for BOnanza!
When mentioning him to various luminaries at the WB music dept, it was told to me that he was not a great composer in the sense of a luminary such as Erik Korngold, but was a great technician and good "b" film man..well I agree that he was a great "b" film man, and if you love the sound of these old scores, I dont think one would want someone like Korngold or Steiner scoring them The music suits me just fine in this genre.
In his personal life, William Lava was a portly man who was a staunch anti-communist. Lava became known as an outspoken critic of the Cuban Revolution. He spoke in favor of direct military action against the Castro regime, continuing to protest in this manner from 1959 until his death.
Bill lava died on Feb 20 1971, leaving, in my opinion a big hole in the art of creating great blowout "b" music for tv....A few of the films he also worked on was
action in The North Atlantic, PT 109, and The Chamber of Horrors(House of Wax II)Creature From The Black Lagoon,etc
I never knew Bill Lava, but I miss him! I knew him through the character of his music.