Shirley Walker Has Died - 11/28/06

Shirley Walker would probably be best remembered as the supervising composer on Batman The Animated Series - but she was also the woman behind what made Elfman's 1989 Batman score sound so good. The same thing with Apocalypse Now and the short lived Space: Above And Beyond.

To say her passing upsets me is a vast understatement.

I had been trading email with Shirley over the past year. It had been an especially tough year - her husband of many years passed away from cancer earlier in 2006. I had gotten one of my last email replies from her only days after the fact.

Shirley was probably the biggest reason I had gained an interest in this field of music, outside of John Williams. One of my first scores was Mask Of The Phantasm, which remains one of the best things I've ever heard.

I feel like I've lost a friend.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Cyrus XIII

The main titles of Batman TAS are actually from Danny Elfman's movie score.

Depends. Elfman wrote a variation on the 1989 march for the cartoon series but when the show was changed to "The Adventures Of Batman And Robin" format, the theme written by Walker was used. She also penned the title for the Batman/Superman Adventures title.

Originally Posted by Cyrus XIII

Walker worked on that score as well though (as the conductor, maybe?)

And primary orchestrator. She's the reason that everyone remembers the 1989 score and not Batman Returns. (She also did ghost arrangements on Batman Forever with fellow TAS composer Michael McCustion)

Originally Posted by Cyrus XIII

Compare this to Gargoyles, where they re-used cues so often, some scenes became predictable because one knew how the music was about to change.

Thats very unfair, given that most shows don't have much budget left over for music, so they're forced to recycle. TAS was made an exception because it was still riding high on the first feature movie and was given extra money to allow a symphonic approach.

There are a number of cartoons that had the library approach to great success - two off the top of my head were ExoSquad and Dungeons & Dragons.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

I think in the end the greatest tragedy in the death of an artisan is that the practice of apprenticeship is almost non-existant.

Its strange you say that because Shirley did have several apprenctices of sorts. Michael McCustion, Lolita Ritmas and Kris Carter all worked under her supervision starting on the first Batman show and have done all the DC/Dini cartoon since.

They don't replace her but her legacy lives on.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.