Galloping Home – The London String Chorale (1972)

Description

Additional information about this, The London String Chorale vinyl art.

The London String Chorale – The Artist

Little information can be found about The London String Chorale other than it was a London based string orchestra that played songs based on the musical genre of the Lutheran Chorale. Galloping Home is their only popular hit.

Galloping Home – The Song

Galloping Home is the  theme tune for Black Beauty and was written by Denis King and performed by the London String Chorale. In 1973 it won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Theme Tune and was voted no. 2 (after Hawaii Five-O) in the Greatest TV Theme Tunes of All Time. It was also released as a single and peaked at number 31 in the UK charts in the week of 2 February 1974. The song has been used in various other TV shows, including The Goodies and Absolutely Fabulous, normally to a comic effect. The “Adventures of Black Beauty” is a British adventure family television series produced by London Weekend Television and shown by ITV in the United Kingdom between 1972 and 1974. It was distributed internationally by London Weekend International. Although it was mainly aimed at children, it was shown in the Sunday teatime family time slot and gained a wide audience, becoming popular enough to make the general Top 20 ratings.The series was not an adaptation of the book by Anna Sewell, but a “continuation” featuring new characters created by Ted Willis, most prominently Dr James Gordon, played by William Lucas, and his children Vicky, played by Judi Bowker (who became Jenny, played by Stacy Dorning, in the second series) and Kevin, played by Roderick Shaw. The series, which was filmed mainly at Stockers Farm, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, was widely acclaimed for its high production values and quality of writing and acting, and at times had remarkable English gothic overtones for a children’s series.

The Rocking Horse – The Shape

A rocking horse is a child’s toy, usually shaped like a horse and mounted on rockers similar to a rocking chair. There are two sorts, the one where the horse part sits rigidly attached to a pair of curved rockers that are in contact with the ground, and a second sort, where the horse hangs on a rigid frame by iron straps the horse moves only relative to the frame, which does not move.
From the 19th century onward, rocking horses became more commonly considered as child’s toy. Mostly built by hobby woodcrafters, and ranging from relatively crude to finely ornamented and the toys of future kings, it was not until the late 19th century that the production became industrialised.

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