He made his name in the 1930s playing in and conducting dance bands, performed with leading classical musicians, scored up to 150 films, wrote radio and television theme tunes and library music, and finally turned to church music at the end of his life in Ireland, a song from which period proved so popular that it reached No.
One of the small bands, put together for recording purposes, was the Ballyhooligans, using a line-up of clarinet, two pianos, guitar, bass and drums,[4] which played in a "near-Dixieland" style.
[7] During the war, Green regularly conducted for BBC broadcasts with various orchestras, on programmes such as Salute to Rhythm,[8] and Band Call.
[3] One of his bands during this period featured a remarkable set of players from the classical music world: Green himself on accordion, Arthur Gleghorn (flute), Leon Goossens (oboe), Reginald Kell (clarinet), Victor Watson (double bass), Jack Collings (percussion), and Denis Gomm (piano), all of whom were members of the BBC Salon Orchestra at the time.
[10] Green also became house arranger and conductor for Decca and accompanied many of their vocalists such as Gracie Fields, Donald Peers and Anne Shelton.
Green's first credited film work was on 1943's The Sky's the Limit, but his first notable success came with The Magic Bow (1946), a musical based on the life and loves of the Italian violinist and composer Niccolò Paganini.
[7][17] A number of his production music pieces were used in Night of the Living Dead and in Looney Tunes theatrical shorts (such as in 1958 when the musicians were on strike, or later added as part of TV prints for Freudy Cat).
[18] In the field of pop music, Green co-wrote the United Kingdom's 1963 Eurovision Song Contest entry, "Say Wonderful Things", with lyrics by Norman Newell.
[20][21] Green continued to compose and conduct for film and television, including the theme tune for The Golden Shot (1967), and to issue light orchestral music recordings until his retirement in 1966.