I had been writing sports themes for ESPN since 1984 …virtually everything on the network. Continually trying to come up with the equivalent of the NBC chime...in this case 4 notes.Lots of themes- nothing stuck.
Fall of 1989 it was time to create a new Sportscenter theme, the spec was to write something “Saturday Night Live’ish”. To me that meant R&B sax driven.
Wrote, recorded,aired, on to the next project.
A few months later Charley Steiner grabbed me in the office, took me to the nearest video player and shares clips of the great athletes of the day making a great play and singing “dadada”- the tag on air
Went viral in the pre internet era.
There was my ESPN chime.
That great sax solo…Danny Wilensky
