Softly, Softly (TV series) Alexis Kanner as DC Matt Stone. Although popular with audiences, Kanner appears to have alienated cast and crew with erratic behaviour during live recordings, and the character was dropped after only nine episodes. He later played the recalcitrant Number 48 in the final episode of "The Prisoner". The first two series continued the trend set by producer David Rose with "Z-Cars", and transmitted the majority of episodes live. This was one of the last long-running British TV series to do this. From series three onwards all episodes were pre-recorded. The original theme music was, like "Z-Cars", a folk-song arrangement by
Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground and his inspired guitar playing". Johnson's music experienced a revival in the 1960s thanks in large part to the efforts of blues guitarist Reverend Gary Davis. A highly regarded figure within the burgeoning New York folk scene, Davis gave copies of Johnson's records to young musicians and taught them to play his songs. The Soul Stirrers, Staples Singers, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Peter, Paul & Mary all covered Johnson. In 1969, the English folk-rock band Fairport Convention released the album "What We Did on Our Holidays" which included a song inspired by "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" called