Few composers of the late 20th Century enjoyed as much popular success or worldwide influence as John Barry. The winner of five Oscars,
four Grammys and other honors ranging from the Golden Globe to Britain's Anthony Asquith Award, he wrote some of the most memorable
movie music of our time: Born Free, Midnight Cowboy, Goldfinger, Out of Africa, Dances with Wolves,
Somewhere in Time and dozens of other scores. Critics marvelled for decades at the Barry touch, a remarkable ability to capture
the mood and flavor of every kind of movie, from the fanciful adventure of a James Bond thriller to the epic romantic visions of leading
filmmakers, while retaining a style that is uniquely his own.
He was born John Barry Prendergast in York, England, in 1933. His father owned a chain of theatres, where John worked as a youth and where he
first became fascinated by both movies and movie music. He played the trumpet and studied music throughout his teen years, as well as during a
three-year stint in the Army (including correspondence-course instruction with famed Stan Kenton arranger Bill Russo). After leaving the
service, he formed a band, the John Barry Seven, which played rock 'n' roll at various live venues and on such seminal TV dance shows as
Six-Five Special,
Oh Boy! and
Drumbeat. By 1958 his band was backing up-and-coming rock star Adam Faith, and when Faith
made his film debut in the 1960 film
Beat Girl, it was Barry who supplied its hip jazz and rock score. Beat Girl became the first
British movie to issue a soundtrack on long playing records.
Barry's experiments with string arrangements (notably on his original album, Stringbeat), his arranger producer credits for EMI artists, and
his long held desire to compose using a broader musical canvas, soon led to a series of assignments for low budget films. All that changed
when James Bond entered the picture in 1962. Barry turned The James Bond Theme, written for the first Bond movie,
Dr. No, into a
commercial success, making him first choice of producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman to write the scores for subsequent films. His
bold, brassy and exciting music became a key element of the Bond formula. He scored
From Russia With Love, pushed The Beatles out of
the no. 1 album spot in America with
Goldfinger, and maintained the tradition throughout the 60s with
Thunderball,
You Only
Live Twice and
On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The latter was especially noteworthy for Barry's collaboration with lyricist Hal
David and vocalist Louis Armstrong on the touching love song "We Have All the Time in the World."
Barry remained James Bond's composer through three decades and three more Bonds (George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton), 12 films in
all, to 1987's
The Living Daylights. His Bond title songs have been performed by some of the hottest names in popular music, from
Shirley Bassey (
Goldfinger,
Diamonds Are Forever) to Duran Duran (
A View to a Kill), Chrissie Hynde and a-ha (
The
Living Daylights). But, while Barry was becoming world-famous for his Bond music, he was also embracing very different musical styles for
very different movies in the mid-60s: a light and lyrical touch for the African-lion family film
Born Free, which won him Oscars for
Best Song and Best Score; a taut, dramatic and surprisingly American score for producer Sam Spiegel's all-star
The Chase; and jazzy
contemporary organ solos for Richard Lester's films, just to name a few.
Originally considered an action composer - largely on the basis of his famed James Bond scores - Barry began to shed that label with several
richly romantic scores in the 70s and 80s, notably the Sean Connery-Audrey Hepburn Robin Hood tale
Robin and Marian and the cult
favorite
Somewhere in Time, whose multiple cable TV showings turned the soundtrack into a gold-record hit. A steamy, jazz-inflected
score for
Body Heat followed, as did an expansive, moving and unforgettable score for Sydney Pollack's film
Out of Africa, which
won Barry his fourth Academy Award. He also won a Grammy and a Golden Globe for
Out of Africa, and collected yet another Grammy for his
music for Francis Ford Coppola's
The Cotton Club.
A serious illness in 1988 led to a long recuperation period for the composer. He returned after a two-year hiatus with a complex and thrilling
symphonic score for Kevin Costner's epic western
Dances With Wolves, earning him a fifth Oscar and a fourth Grammy. After that, there
have been a variety of accomplishments in many different arenas of music, including another Oscar nomination (for the melancholy score of
Chaplin) and a 3-D IMAX movie (the New York travelogue
Across the Sea of Time). The year 1995 was of particular note, with
strong dramatic scores produced for
The Scarlet Letter and
Cry, The Beloved Country. He had three scores rejected or withdrawn
in the 1990's, however:
The Horse Whisperer (1998),
Goodbye, Lover (1998), and
Year of the Comet (1992).
Barry was serious about his professional privacy. He did not want to be pressured by directors, producers, or music supervisors (which he
detests). He turned down assignments for
The Prince of Tides because he didn't want to report everyday to Barbara Streisand; nor did
he agree to score
Sleepless in Seattle after discovering that he'd have to share time with 20 songs that the producers wanted on the
album. He enjoyed conducting in private, among the knowledgeable musicians of Los Angeles. Of his own scores, Barry's favorites were
The Lion
in the Winter, the massive, 1968 Academy Award winning score,
Zulu, with a theme that was re-used in 1995's
Cry, The Beloved
Country, and his Academy Award winning efforts for
Out of Africa and
Dances with Wolves. His least favorite of his own 1986
works were
Howard the Duck, which he tried desperately to have pulled from the film (but failed), and
The Golden Child, in which
Barry was partially successful in having his own score pulled from the film. Barry also recalled that his least favorite recording experience
was
Born Free, which had a very hurried production schedule.
In Spring 1998, John Barry signed to Decca Records as a recording artist, which led to the release of
The Beyondness of Things, his
first album of non-soundtrack music for 25 years. This lush and colourful album of original music also heralded his triumphant return to the
concert hall: he conducted the English Chamber Orchestra in London's Royal Albert Hall in 1998 and then again in 1999. His final release
on Decca is a collection of jazz tunes for Miramax's
Playing by Heart, expanded considerably for the album. In June 1999, John Barry
was named an Officer of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for his outstanding achievements in music. Then, in October 1999, he was
honored at London's annual Music Industry Trust Dinner, a star-studded benefit that raised more than $200,000 for charity. He retired in Oyster
Bay, New York, with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jonpatrick, before his eventual death in 2011.
John Barry rehearses a cue for Beat Girl in 1959.
Notice that every musician has a cigarette in his mouth.
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