From today’s New York Times: “Earle H. Hagen, a onetime big-band trombonist who wrote some of the most famous theme songs in television history, died Monday in Rancho Mirage, Calif., near Palm Springs. He was 88 and lived in Rancho Mirage. … He wrote the folksy, countrified whistle that opened ‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ accompanying Sheriff Andy Taylor (Mr. Griffith) and his young son, Opie (Ron Howard), down a dirt road toward a fishing hole; he did the whistling himself.”
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