Beal's first instrument was piano at age 6. He was a professional soloist in a boys choir at age 8 and a professional jazz and big band drummer on stage and in the recording studio by age 15. After his highly decorated service with the
United States Marine Corps, he returned to Hollywood as a musical director and arranger with recording stars
Olivia Newton-John (in her U.S. debut),
B. B. King,
Gladys Knight,
Johnny Mathis,
Lou Rawls, and for many television variety shows ranging from
Ed Sullivan to
The Carpenters Make Your Own Kind of Music,
The Captain & Tennille Songbook and
John Wayne's
Emmy Award-winning
Sing Out Sweet Land, to
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Beal was also the conductor and arranger for the vocal groups The Establishment, The Kids Next Door, The Nabors Kids, The King Cousins, and
The Doodletown Pipers, and worked on stage in Las Vegas and on the showroom circuit with such icons of the day as
Phyllis Diller,
Perry Como,
Bobby Darin,
Raquel Welch,
Mitzi Gaynor,
Leslie Uggams,
Jim Nabors,
Sally Struthers,
Teresa Graves,
Peggy Fleming,
Frankie Avalon, and
Ed Ames. Beginning in the late 1970s, he composed original music for numerous hit television series, including
Vegas with
Robert Urich,
Eight Is Enough with
Dick Van Patten and
Betty Buckley,
Happy Days with
Ron Howard and
Henry Winkler,
Laverne & Shirley with
Penny Marshall and
Cindy Williams,
Goodtime Girls with
Annie Potts and
Georgia Engel,
Legmen with
Bruce Greenwood and
John Terlesky, and
Chicago Story with
Dennis Franz and
Craig T. Nelson. His feature films included
Zero to Sixty (1978) starring
Darren McGavin and
Joan Collins,
The Funhouse (1981) from director
Tobe Hooper,
Terror in the Aisles (1984) starring
Donald Pleasence and
Nancy Allen, and
Killer Party (1986) starring
Sherry Willis-Burch. At the suggestion of Gary LeMel (President, Worldwide Music for
Warner Bros.), Beal was tapped by Hollywood's marketing guru and "Godfather of Trailers,"
Andrew J. Kuehn of Kaleidoscope Films (
Jaws and other major hit films) to work with him in the film trailer industry. Kuehn and Beal collaborated on the very inception of today's modern film trailer format and Beal has long been recognized as the man who gave contemporary trailers their musical voice. Beal has composed original scores for over 2,000 trailers. His list of major studio credits includes campaigns for such hit films as
JFK,
Titanic,
The Matrix,
Forrest Gump,
The Last Samurai, Aladdin, the
Star Wars trilogy,
The Hunt for Red October,
True Lies,
In the Line of Fire,
Patriot Games,
The Mask of Zorro,
Black Rain,
Ghost,
Finding Neverland, and hundreds more.
Daily Variety box office results show the financial success of film campaigns to which he contributed original music is literally measured in hundreds of billions of dollars, and he is considered by the New York Times as the pioneer of original scores for
film trailer music. Recently, John Beal has been conducting live to film concerts that include such films as Star Wars Return of the Jedi, Top Gun: Maverick, Toy Story, The Godfather, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Goonies, Home Alone, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone [aka Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone], Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Music Directed the world premiere of Respect Film in Concert, Music Directed and conducted the world premiere of Chicago Live to Film and Music Directed and conducted the world premiere of Rocketman: Live in Concert. and Music Directed and conducted the world premiere of Serengeti: Live in Concert In December 2017 John Beal began working with
AIVA and
NVIDIA. and in February 2018, John Beal became the conductor on the
Deadmau5 studio album "where's the drop?" and its subsequent concerts beginning in March 2018 with deadmau5 and a large symphony orchestra. ==Other projects==