The Beau Hunks

The Beau Hunks are a Dutch revivalist music ensemble who have performed and recorded the vintage works of composers Leroy Shield, Marvin Hatley, Raymond Scott, Edward MacDowell, Ferde Grofé, and others.

They have recorded for the labels Movies Select Audio, EigenWijs (a division of the VPRO, the Dutch public broadcasting network), Basta Audio-Visuals, and Koch Screen.

The Beau Hunks Orchestra was originally a quintet organized to perform soundtrack themes from Hal Roach film studio comedies of the 1930s, including those of Laurel & Hardy, Our Gang, The Little Rascals, Charley Chase, Thelma Todd, and the Taxi Boys.

The Roach film music, composed mostly by Leroy Shield (without screen credit), with additional songs and cues by T. Marvin Hatley, was publicly familiar, but had never been commercially released, and the original recordings and scores were presumed lost.

"[1] Using these reconstructed recordings, Schreuders worked closely with transcribers and arrangers Peter Stöve, Jan Robijns, Robert Veen, and Menno Daams to perfect written charts to accurately reflect the music heard in the films.

[3] Following the commercial and critical success of their 1992/93 Shield restorations, the Beau Hunks undertook recording projects involving forgotten but, in their estimation, historic works by American composers.