Peter Gunn Theme

If I ran a game shop I would play the song Peter Gunn Theme by The Blues Brothers Band.

I don't think there are too many game store denizens that remember the 1950s TV show Peter Gunn, but there is certainly a generation of gamers that remember the song from the arcade game Spy Hunter and The Blues Brothers soundtrack. The song very nearly defines spycraft. It has been covered, knocked off, and sampled to ingrain it into the landscape of spy tropes.

The Peter Gunn Theme is unusual because it's all one chord, with an instantly recognizable bass ostinato that plays unchanging throughout the entire song. The original version was composed by Henry Mancini. It was released on his 1959 album, The Music from Peter Gunn. That album won Mancini two 1959 Grammy Awards, for "Album of the Year" and "Best Arrangement". In 2010 the Library of Congress added the album to the National Recording Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The song also garnered him with a 1959 Primetime Emmy Award nomination in the category of "Best Musical Contribution to a Television Program".

The Blues Brothers Band version was released on the 1980 album, The Blues Brothers: Music from the Soundtrack. It is a very clean recording, true to the original but adding weight in the right places. This version doesn't evoke a black and white TV serial but instead insists on a 1970s muscle car cruising the shadows at night. It's less gentleman spy and more rogue cop with a bad attitude and an over-sized pistol. Or maybe it's about two greasy, criminal brothers who try to project cool through their Ray Bans.

Peter Gunn Theme on Google Play