There will be lots of music on Sunday super bowl LVI broadcast, and no, we’re not talking about the halftime show, but rather the music at the start of the show and throughout the game itself.
John WilliamsThe “Sunday Night Football” march is expected to open the broadcast. “That’s our theme,” says Super Bowl executive producer Fred Gaudelli. “There’s a grandeur, an importance, that lets you know a big game is about to begin. And there’s no game more important than the Super Bowl.
But, Gaudelli adds, plenty of other music will be heard when the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams take the field, much of it in the tradition of TV sports themes dating back to the 1960s: muscular music appropriate to accompany modern sport. Day gladiators in the arena for battle.
“It’s all about storytelling,” says Adam Taylor, president and CEO of APM, the music production house that provides music to every network, the National Football League and almost every team of the NFL. “It’s really the drama, the story. The purpose of our music is to inform the narrative, reinforce it and capture the emotions of the moment.
APM controls “Heavy Action,” better known as “Monday Night Football” still heard on ESPN but dating back to its 1975 debut on ABC in the era of Howard Cosell, Keith Jackson and Don Meredith. His first four ratings became synonymous with football on television.
Unlike Williams’ music commissioned by NBC in 2006, “Heavy Action” was not originally written with pigskin in mind. British conductor Johnny Pearson wrote it as a generic library piece, and its adoption for the BBC sports competition show “Superstars” in 1973 brought it to the attention of ABC programmers and its possible use, now iconic, for prime time American football.
By comparison, the original 1970 signature “Monday Night Football” was written specifically for ABC, composer Charles Fox recalls. Its jazz-based Hammond organ and electric guitar licks provided a hip sound at the time and lasted until “Heavy Action” replaced it.
APM also represents key pieces of what its director of sports entertainment Matthew Gutknecht calls “the crown jewel,” NFL Films’ music library, including the big horns and hard-hitting percussion of composer Sam Spence who has composed hundreds of NFL marquee shows throughout the 1970s. These tunes – filled with the heroism and glory of the game – set the tone for sports music forever, Gutknecht points out.
“It builds anticipation, a bit like music in a trailer,” adds Gutknecht. “Players run out of the tunnel, steam and fire come out and fireworks go up – it’s the same reward.”
NBC’s Gaudelli says the different musical selections his sound engineers made “really fit the mood of the game and what’s happening.” It is the exclamation point of a segment, event, play, or person.
And whether the music is hip-hop, country or heavy metal – all of which are found in today’s football music – “you have to feel the energy and the many different emotions of a game,” says Taylor d ‘APM. “Not just rah-rah, but moments of sadness or disappointment.”
