Les Baxter
Born March 14th, 1922 – Died January. 15th, 1996
Baxter was a composer that started in the film business in the early ’50s cranking out score after score in record time. In his career, he has score more than 120 films, with 15 titles in 1957 alone! He worked in many different genres, but for us horror fans, we remember him from his work that he did for AIP, especially the Roger Corman / Edgar Allan Poe films. He also re-scored a lot of foreign films that were being picked up and released here in the states, such as Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960) and Black Sabbath (1963), or even titles like Reptilicus (1961)
Baxter started his musical career at a very young age, learning the piano at the age of 5. In his early 20’s, he joined Mel Torme’s band, worked on radio shows including Bob Hope’s show, and even had a hit record in the 50’s.
But it is for his film scores that I learned of his name. Since these movies will always live on for fans like us, so will his music. Baxter always gave us something different and unique that always highlighted the film even more.
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