Daily News from New York, New York • 27

ro SONGBOOK BmTPWNPff mmmm 0 OQS ffliQ flffliQ JMStltt tfofltt uuatl By DAVID HINCKLEY FROM ARCHIE and Edith Bunker warbling "Those Were the Days" to the drums that build to a frenzied crescendo under the opening credits of "NYPD Blue," television producers have recognized they can't do a show about New York without music that's strong enough to hold its own against the world's most powerful cityscape. But no program has ever woven its music mto the city and its story more dramatically and effectively than "Naked City," producer Herbert B. Leonard's brilliant cop series. There were 8 million stories in the Naked City, the narrator reminded viewers each week. By the time the show ended its run, it had recounted 99 of them.

Along the way, it used two songs. When the Pi MLIImIIIIHIiS! MAY LOVED full I MAY LOVED full orchestras, and for "Naked City" he went heavy on the brass. The result was a kind of urban nm thtr nrrixni? original "Naked City" debuted on ABC on Sept. 30, 1958, as a half-hour drama starring John Mclntire and James Franciscus, the theme music was "This Is the Naked City," composed by George W. Duning.

About midway through the season, Duning parlayed his song into a "soundtrack album," with lyrics by Ned i I III I i "Grand Canyon Suite." I I fV I lM.t I Occasionally, in a ULU UUUL5L to) "5 lighter moment, May would let the music soar up into the skyscrapers. More often he was delivering the same wary message in music that the script was delivering in words and the camera was finding as it peered JPHE PEOPLE who sent the memos preferred "library tracks," which came cheaper than Billy May. But just as Leonard insisted upon shooting the whole show on the real New York streets, he also insisted on the custom-written music that often took him over budget. That's why, May said, he usually had to work with only six brass and four woodwind players, plus harp and percussion. So Nancy's strings, when he could use them, were a treat.

In the end, this refusal to compromise drove "Naked City" off the air. Leonard did a prison episode called "Prime Of Life" with a bracing death-house execution scene May's music was pretty bracing, too and ran it on Christmas Eve 1962. That's it, ABC decided. The show finished its run in spring 1963, and it wasn't too long before that final 99th episode that Milt Raskin added lyrics to the music May had composed as simply a "Naked City" instrumental. Raskin's "Somewhere in the Night" sent the show home through the same streets where it had lived: Somewhere in the night Chasing shadows around the bend Somewhere in the night Chasing rainbows that have no end In the misty light You are mine and you hold me fast But dreams have a way Of calling it a day They seldom last My dreams have a past But in my lonely flight I'll keep searching till time is through For somewhere in the night Till I find you.

Washington and only an incidental connection to the show. This 30-minute "Naked City" lasted just this one season, as its creators decided they needed a full hour to tell their tales. So they sat out a season, a highly unusual move, and came back on Oct. 12, 1960 with two new stars, Horace McMahon and Paul Burke, and one new song, "Naked City Theme" composed by veteran Billy May. The musical change was as important as the casting change.

While the series' first incarnation had used Duning's song as a theme, it used "library tracks," or previously recorded music, to underscore the drama itself. Once prolific May came on board, however, he wrote entire scores for each episode, at the request of producer Leonard, who had Nelson Riddle doing the same for his "Route 66" series. This gave "Naked City" the same scored-to-order feeling as a motion picture, and May was a composer who knew what he had: stories with both a wide range of emotional tension and a majestic, powerful setting. "Billy was perfect for New York," Leonard said. around the next corner.

One of Leonard's subtle innovations for "Naked City" was to change the way music fit into the show's opening credits. Standard practice was the "I Love Lucy" style, wherein the titles and credits rolled as the theme song played. "Naked City" opened with an action sequence, a tease to the upcoming story with its own scoring, often just hinting at the theme. The theme would kick in when the titles came on screen, after the tease and right around the first commercials. May also created different music for each of the major characters, signature themes he could weave into the score as that character moved in and out.

The music he created for Nancy Malone, who played Burke's fiance, also served his own purposes: When the program first introduced her character, "I talked them into letting me use six celli," he recounted. "Then, every time there would be a show where she was prominent, they had to let me use the celli again." This was a particularly sweet victory, he felt, not only because knockout Malone was a celli kind of gal but because he kept getting memos telling him to keep costs down. to TODAY'S QUESTION: The movie: "Moonstruck." The place: Lincoln Center. What opera are Cher and Nicolas Cage attending? AN01 ONV VI 01 1SV1 01 H3MSNV SONGBOOii CHALLENGE.