John Barry (composer)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
John Barry.
John Barry.

John Barry, OBE (born John Barry Prendergast on 3 November 1933 in York, England) is a renowned Golden Globe and five-time Academy Award winning British film score composer.

Contents

[edit] Personal life

Living in his native England until the mid 1970s, Barry spent some time in Spain (for tax reasons) but has since spent his life in the United States, mainly in Oyster Bay outside of New York.

Barry suffered a rupture of the oesophagus in 1988 which has left him vulnerable to pneumonia.[1]

Barry has been married four times. His first three marriages ended in divorce: Barbara Pickard 1959-63; Jane Birkin 1965-68; and Jane Sidey 1969-71. He married his current wife, Laurie Barry on 3 January 1978. Barry has three children, one each from his first, second and fourth marriages.

[edit] Career

His family was in the cinema business, but it was during his National Service that he began performing as a musician. After taking a correspondence course (with jazz composer Bill Russo) and arranging for some of the bands of the day, he formed the John Barry Seven. Barry then met Adam Faith, and composed songs and film scores on the singer's behalf.

These achievements caught the attention of the producers of a new film called Dr. No who were dissatisfied with the score given to them by Monty Norman. Barry was hired and the result would arguably be the most famous signature tune in film history, the 'James Bond Theme'. (Credit goes to Monty Norman, see below.)

This would be the turning point for Barry, as he would go on to become one of the most celebrated film composers of modern times, winning five Academy Awards and four Grammys, with such memorable scores written for The Lion in Winter, Midnight Cowboy, Out of Africa, and Dances with Wolves.

Barry is often cited as having a distinct style which concentrates on lush strings and extensive use of brass. However he is also an innovator, being one of the first to employ synthesisers in a film score (On Her Majesty's Secret Service), and to make wide use of pop artists and songs in Midnight Cowboy. (Note that while The Graduate came a few years before, those songs had all been previously released.)

Barry is also know for the famous score he wrote for the theme tune for TV Series The Persuaders, also known as "The Unlucky Heroes" in which Tony Curtis and Roger Moore were paired as rich playboys solving crimes. The theme went to be a hit single in some European Countries and has been re-released on collections of 1970s disco hits. The instumental recording features Moog synthesisers. Barry also wrote the scores to a number of musicals, including the successful West End show Billy and two major Broadway flops, The Little Prince and the Aviator and Lolita, My Love, the latter with Alan Jay Lerner as lyricist.

During 2006, Barry was the Executive Producer on an album entitled, Here's to the Heroes by the Australian ensemble, The Ten Tenors. The album features a number of songs Barry wrote in collaboration with his lyricist friend, Don Black.

Barry's orchestration very often combines the horn section with the strings in a way that makes his music immediately recognisable. By providing not just the main title theme but the complete soundtrack score, Barry's music often enhances the critical reception of a film. It is particularly notably on "Midnight Cowboy", "Out of Africa", and "Dances with Wolves."

[edit] James Bond series

 The neutrality of this section is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.
This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
This article has been tagged since September 2006.
From Russia with Love was Barry's first James Bond original score
From Russia with Love was Barry's first James Bond original score

After his success with Dr. No, Barry would go on to score 11 of the next 14 Bond films, starting with his first as lead composer, From Russia with Love in 1963.

During his tenure with the 007 series, Barry's sound, variously brassy and moody, clicked both with fans of the films and their soundtrack albums. For From Russia With Love he created an alternate Bond signature theme, "007," which was featured in four other Bond films (Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, and Moonraker). Barry's track for the pre-credit sequence of From Russia With Love, "Stalking" was replicated by colleague Marvin Hamlisch for the 1977 Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. (The lyrics for Russia's title song were written by Lionel Bart, who went on to write Oliver!)

In Goldfinger he would perfect the "Bond sound", a heady mixture of brass, jazz and sensuous melodies. There's even an element of Barry's jazz roots in the big-band track "Into Miami," which follows the title credits and accompanies the film's iconic image of the camera lens zooming toward the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach.

As Barry matured, the Bond scores concentrated more on lush melodies, as in Moonraker and Octopussy. Barry's score for A View to a Kill was traditional, however his collaboration with Duran Duran for the title song was contemporary and one of the most successful Bond themes to date, reaching number one in the United States and number two in the UK Singles Chart. Both A View to a Kill and the Living Daylights theme by a-ha blended the pop music style of the artists with Barry's orchestration. In 2006 a-ha's Pal Waaktaar complimented Barry's contributions "I loved the stuff he added to the track, I mean it gave it this really cool string arrangement. That's when for me it started to sound like a Bond thing".[2]

David Arnold, a young British composer, saw the result of two years work in 1997 with the release of Shaken and Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project, an album of new versions of the themes from various James Bond films. Almost all of the tracks were John Barry compositions and the revision of his work obviously met with his approval - he contacted Barbara Broccoli, producer of the upcoming Tomorrow Never Dies, to recommend Arnold as the film's composer.[3] Arnold also went on to score the subsequent Bond films; The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day and Casino Royale. It has been suggested that Barry is no longer associated with the Bond films due to salary disputes with MGM, although it is equally possible that he would rather concentrate on new projects. Industry trade papers reported during the late 1980s that the studio decided to go for "a new sound," coinciding with Timothy Dalton assuming the role of James Bond (replacing the departing Roger Moore). This occurred after The Living Daylights, Dalton's first film in the series, which was Barry's last Bond score.

[edit] Authorship of the "James Bond Theme"

Credit for this is given solely to composer Monty Norman (who had been contracted to compose the score for Dr. No). However Barry, while not publicly denying this, has at times implied otherwise. Matters came to a head over 30 years after the original composition, when Monty Norman sued The Sunday Times for a 1997 article which named Barry as the true author. For this lawsuit, Barry himself attended in 2001 and testified for the defence.[4]

Barry told the court he had been given a music manuscript of a work by Norman (intended to become the theme) and that Barry was to make a musical arrangement. Barry told the court he composed additional material, and arranged the theme. The court was also told that Norman received sole credit due to his prior contractual agreement with the film producers. Monty Norman won the suit and was awarded damages. http://www.geocities.com/jaoll/barry/lawsuit.htm

On 7 September 2006, Barry publicly defended his authorship of the theme on the Steve Wright show on BBC Radio 2.[5]

[edit] Other major film scores

[edit] Television themes

[edit] Other works

  • The Americans
  • The Beyondness of Things
  • Eternal Echoes

John Barry was inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame in 1998.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Monty Norman v. The Sunday Times: The "James Bond Theme" Lawsuit. The John Barry Resource. Retrieved on 2006-11-24. “...pneumonia. His ruptured oesophagus in 1988 has left him vulnerable to this illness”
  2. ^ Waaktaar, Pal (interviewee). (2006). James Bond's Greatest Hits [Television]. UK: North One Television.
  3. ^ Macnee, Patrick (Narrator). The Bond Sound: The Music of 007 [DVD (Documentary)].
  4. ^ Monty Norman v. The Sunday Times: The "James Bond Theme" Lawsuit. The John Barry Resource. Retrieved on 2006-11-24.
  5. ^ John Barry On The Bond Theme. MI6.co.uk (2006-09-09). Retrieved on 2006-11-24.

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Monty Norman
Dr. No, 1962		 James Bond title artist
From Russia with Love, 1963		 Succeeded by
Shirley Bassey
Goldfinger, 1964
Preceded by
Nancy Sinatra
You Only Live Twice, 1967		 James Bond title artist
On Her Majesty's Secret Service, 1969		 Succeeded by
Shirley Bassey
Diamonds Are Forever, 1971
Preceded by
Monty Norman
1962		 James Bond film score composer
1962-1971		 Succeeded by
George Martin
1973
Preceded by
George Martin
1973		 James Bond film score composer
1974		 Succeeded by
Marvin Hamlisch
1977
Preceded by
Marvin Hamlisch
1977		 James Bond film score composer
1979		 Succeeded by
Bill Conti
1981
Preceded by
Bill Conti
1981		 James Bond film score composer
1983-1987		 Succeeded by
Michael Kamen
1989
 v • d • e 
James Bond title themes
Official films
John Barry Orchestra "The James Bond Theme" • Matt Monro "From Russia with Love" • Shirley Bassey "Goldfinger" • Tom Jones "Thunderball" • Nancy Sinatra "You Only Live Twice" • John Barry orchestra "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" • Shirley Bassey "Diamonds Are Forever" • Paul McCartney & Wings " Live and Let Die" • Lulu "The Man with the Golden Gun" • Carly Simon "Nobody Does It Better" • Shirley Bassey "Moonraker" • Sheena Easton "For Your Eyes Only" • Rita Coolidge "All Time High" • Duran Duran "A View to a Kill" • a-ha "The Living Daylights" • Gladys Knight "Licence To Kill" • Tina Turner " GoldenEye" • Sheryl Crow "Tomorrow Never Dies" • Garbage "The World Is Not Enough" • Madonna "Die Another Day" • Chris Cornell "You Know My Name"
Unofficial films
Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass "Casino Royale" | Lani Hall "Never Say Never Again"
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../j/o/h/John_Barry_%28composer%29_a23a.html"