The Joe Harnell collection consists of 1.5 linear feet dating from 1965-2000, with the bulk of the material from 1982-1988. A majority of the materials are scripts that Harnell collected while composing film scores; with the remaining material consisting of his autobiography Counterpoint, a DVD from an episode of The Mike Douglas Show, and a CD of film music that Harnell composed and conducted. Joe Harnell (1924-2005) spent his life composing and performing music in various fields of entertainment ranging from military bands, an accompanist for singers such as Judy Garland, Maurice Chevalier, and Marlene Dietrich, a jingle writer, a musical director for talk shows, and working in Hollywood composing film scores. His accomplishments were represented with a Grammy Award for his arrangement of "Fly Me To the Moon" and an Emmy nomination for his musical work on the show V. Near the end of his career he became a faculty member at USC's Thornton School of Music.

Joe Harnell, born on August 2, 1924, was an American composer, musician, and music arranger. He began playing piano at six years old and performed in his father's ensemble at the age of fourteen. He attended the University of Miami in the early 1940s and then joined the Air Force in 1943, where he played with Glenn Miller's Army Air Forces Band. Throughout his time in the army he studied music with Nadia Boulanger while stationed in Paris and William Walton while at Trinity College of Music in London. After he was discharged from the Air Force in 1946, he studied at Tanglewood under Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein.

1.5 Linear Feet; (1 record box, 1 document box)

Property rights to the collection and physical objects belong to the Regents of the University of California acting through the Department of Special Research Collections at the UCSB Library. All applicable literary rights, including copyright to the collection and physical objects, are protected under Chapter 17 of the U.S. Copyright Code and are retained by the creator and the copyright owner, heir(s), or assigns.

The collection is open for research.