David Browning

David Browning (Born 1936) is a musician and cornet player who was hired in 1960 to play the melody of the theme tune to Coronation Street written by Eric Spear and titled Where No Birds Sing (which was also the title of a script that Tony Warren sent to the BBC in 1956 when he first proposed the idea that became Coronation Street).

Browning is a former music professor at Salford University who has worked with many world-famous groups and musicians as a session musician and also played the theme to The Archers, Opportunity Knocks, New Faces, The Golden Shot, Nearest and Dearest, and The Wheeltappers and Shunters Club (the latter two being Granada productions).

Browning states that his total payment for playing the theme was a one-off payment of thirty-six pounds and he recorded the theme twice, once for the original version in 1960 and a slightly revised version in 1964. A report by Ron Simmonds in Jazz Professional in 1994 stated that Ronnie Hunt actually played the theme and that a later version was used that was played by Stan Roderick but it was decided to revert to the earlier version (It should be noted that the theme used in the earliest version of the first colour title sequence in 1969 is subtlety different to the normal theme but reverts back to the earlier version in early to mid-1970 and it is possible that this is where the story emanates from).