|
John Barry, OBE (born John Barry Prendergast on 3 November 1933 in York, England, United Kingdom) is a renowned Golden Globe and five-time Academy Award-winning English film score composer.
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 esophagus in 1988 which has left him vulnerable to pneumonia.
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.
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 Grammy Awards, 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 mostly been previously released.)
Barry is also known 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 (lyrics: Don Black) 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, notably in Midnight Cowboy, Out of Africa, and Dances with Wolves.
After the success of Dr. No, Barry scored eleven of the next 14 James Bond series films; his first, as lead composer, was From Russia with Love (1963).
In his tenure with the film series, Barry's music, variously brassy and moody, appealed to film aficionados, as witnessed in the sales of the soundtrack albums. For From Russia With Love he composed "007", an alternate James Bond signature theme, which is featured in four other Bond films (Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, Moonraker). The theme "Stalking", for the teaser sequence of From Russia With Love, was covered by colleague Marvin Hamlisch for the The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). (The lyrics for From Russia With Love'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 is 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".
* Dr. No (1962) — James Bond Theme on credit sequence only
* From Russia with Love (lyrics by Lionel Bart) (1963), Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Song in a Motion Picture
* Goldfinger (1964)
* Thunderball (1965)
* You Only Live Twice (1967)
* On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
* Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
* The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
* Moonraker (1979)
* Octopussy (1983)
* A View to a Kill (1985), (Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Score - Motion Picture & for Best Original Song - Motion Picture)
* The Living Daylights (1987)
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. 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.
Sole compositional credit for the "James Bond Theme" is attributed to Monty Norman (who had been contracted as composer for Dr. No), however, Barry, while not publicly denying that, has implied otherwise. Some 30 years later, authorial matters came to a head in court when Norman sued The Sunday Times when that claim was published in a 1997 article naming Barry as the true composer; Barry testified for the defence.
In court, Barry declared he had been handed a musical manuscript of a work by Norman (meant to become the theme) and that he was to arrange it musically, and that he composed additional music and arranged the "James Bond Theme". The Court also was told that Norman received sole credit, because of his prior contract with the producers; Norman won the lawsuit and was awarded damages. http://www.geocities.com/jaoll/barry/lawsuit.htm Nevertheless, on 7 September 2006, John Barry publicly defended his authorship of the theme on the Steve Wright show on BBC Radio 2.
Other major film scores
* Zulu (1964)
* Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1965)
* The Knack …and How to Get It (1965)
* King Rat (1965)
* The IPCRESS File (1965)
* Born Free (1966) (Two Academy Awards - Best Music, Original Song (lyrics by Don Black), Best Music, Original Music Score, Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture)
* The Whisperers (1967)
* Deadfall (1968)
* The Lion in Winter (1968) (Academy Award - Best Music, Original Score for a Motion Picture, BAFTA Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music, Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Score)
* Midnight Cowboy (1969) (Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition)
* Walkabout (1971)
* The Last Valley (1971)
* Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) (Academy Award nomination for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score, Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Score)
* Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972)
* The Tamarind Seed (1974)
* The Dove (1974) (Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Song)
* King Kong (1976)
* Robin and Marian (1976)
* The Deep (1977) (Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Song - Motion Picture)
* First Love (1977)
* Game Of Death (1978)
* Hanover Street (1979)
* The Black Hole (1979)
* Somewhere in Time (1980) (Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Score - Motion Picture)
* Inside Moves (1980)
* Night Games (1980)
* Raise the Titanic (1981)
* Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981) (Razzie Award for Worst Musical Score)
* Body Heat (1981)
* Frances (1982)
* High Road to China (1983)
* The Cotton Club (1984)
* Until September (1984)
* Jagged Edge (1985)
* Out of Africa (1985) (Academy Award - Best Music, Original Score, BAFTA Award nomination for Best Original Film Score)
* Howard the Duck (1986)
* My Sister's Keeper (1986)
* The Golden Child (1986)
* Hearts of Fire (1987)
* Masquerade (1988)
* Dances with Wolves (1990) (Academy Award - Best Music, Original Score, BAFTA Award nomination for Best Original Film Score, Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Score - Motion Picture)
* Chaplin (1992) (Academy Award nomination for Best Music, Original Score, Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Score - Motion Picture)
* Ruby Cairo (1992)
* Indecent Proposal (1993)
* The Specialist (1994)
* Cry, The Beloved Country (1995)
* Across The Sea of Time (1995) (3D IMAX movie)
* The Scarlet Letter (1995)
* Mercury Rising (1998)
* Playing By Heart (1998)
* Enigma (2001)
Television themes
* The Adventurer
* Eleanor and Franklin
* The Newcomers
* The Persuaders!
* Vendetta
|
