- His theme for Sexton Blake (1967) was recorded by The Vic Flick Sound and released on the now defunct Rediffusion label in the UK.
- Musician, arranger and orchestra leader
- Son of a motorcycle engineer's assistant.
- From 1953, led a well-known group, the 'Tunesmiths', recording for Parlophone. He later established a larger orchestra in conjunction with fellow musician Charlie Chester, which featured a predominant violin section, turning out popular ballads in the style of Mantovani, as well as movie and TV themes.
- Chacksfield was born in Battle, East Sussex, and as a child learned to play piano and organ.
- He was an English pianist, organist, composer, arranger, and conductor of popular light orchestral easy listening music, who had great success in Britain and internationally in the 1950s and early 1960s.
- He also developed business interests in publishing and recorded for Starborne Productions, a company supplying "canned music" for use by easy listening radio stations and others. Many of these recordings were made commercially available in 2007. Many of his recordings were used during Testcard and Ceefax intervals on BBC1 and BBC2 during the 80s and 90s.
- His song "Après Ski" was featured in the 2006 video game Saints Row, for the Xbox 360.
- His 78 single, "Ebb Tide", became the first British instrumental recording to reach No. 1 in American charts, providing a second gold disc, and he was voted the most promising new orchestra of the year in the US.
- His last album was Thanks for the Memories (Academy Award Winners 1934-55), released in 1991.
- He also worked after the war as musical director for both Henry Hall and Geraldo, and began recording under his own name in 1951 as "Frank Chacksfield's Tunesmiths".
- From the album All Time Top T.V. Themes (Decca PFS 4087, 1966; also as The Great TV Themes on London SP 44077), several tracks were used by Dutch offshore pirate radio station Radio Veronica in the 1960s. "Rawhide" and "Dragnet" were used in the news jingles; "The Alfred Hitchcock Theme" was also used.
- Chacksfield was responsible for the musical arrangement of the first UK entry into the Eurovision Song Contest 1957; "All" by Patricia Bredin.
- In 1954, he began presenting a series on BBC TV, which continued occasionally until the early 1960s.
- At the beginning of World War II, he joined the Royal Army Service Corps, and, following a radio broadcast as a pianist, was posted to ENSA at Salisbury where he became the arranger for Stars in Battledress, an armed forces entertainment troupe, and shared an office with comedian Charlie Chester.
- He had appeared at Hastings Music Festivals by the time he was 14, and then became deputy church organist at Salehurst.
- In early 1953, he had his first top ten hit, "Little Red Monkey", on the Parlophone label. This was a novelty recording featuring Jack Jordan on the clavioline, and the first record featuring an electronic instrument (clavioline) to feature on the UK singles chart.
- He continued to record occasionally until the 1990s, from the 1970s primarily on the Phase 4 label.
- His material was "mood music", similar to that of Mantovani, including ballads, waltzes, and film themes.
- He signed a recording contract with Decca Records in 1953, and formed a 40-piece orchestra with a large string section, the "Singing Strings".
- After working for a short period in a solicitor's office he decided on a career in music, and by the late 1930s, led a small band at Tonbridge in Kent.
- His first record release for Decca, Charlie Chaplin's theme for his film Limelight, won him a gold disc in the United States, and in the United Kingdom, where it reached No. 2 in the UK Singles Chart, and won him the NME award as 'Record of the Year'. It spent eight weeks at No. 2 (an all-time UK chart record), and in all thirteen weeks in the top five chart positions, without dislodging Frankie Laine's "I Believe".
- After the war, he worked with Charlie Chester on BBC Radio as an arranger and conductor.
- He became one of Britain's best known orchestra leaders internationally, and is estimated to have sold more than 20 million albums worldwide.
- The main theme from his Latin-American style track "Cuban Boy" is used as the theme music for the BBC Scotland sitcom Still Game.
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