Fritz Spiegl Fritz Spiegl died suddenly during a Sunday lunch in Liverpool with his wife, Ingrid Frances Spiegl, and some friends. As a composer, Spiegl scored a popular success with the original theme from the TV series "Z-Cars", based on "Johnny Todd", a Liverpool sea shanty. He also composed the original theme for the "Z Cars" spin-off series "Softly, Softly"; the song was also released as a single on Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate record label in 1966. His BBC Radio 4 "UK Theme", in which national songs from each of the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom are combined, was heard
The Avengers (TV series) television theme was issued on Fontana in 1963. A very faithful cover version was released by Johnny Gregory. When Rigg joined the series in 1965, new theme music by Laurie Johnson was introduced. This was based on a previously released title, on LP called "The Shake" (which capitalised on "The Shake" dance craze of the 60s). For the colour series (1967), a percussion section was added to accompany the new teaser sequence at the start of each episode. Johnson re-scored the theme when Linda Thorson joined the series, adding a counter-melody on trumpet, based on the leitmotif for Tara King