Howard Maxford
talks to film music
composer John
Barry whose hit
credits include
many of the James
Bond themes, as
well as writing the
music for Born
Free, Out Of
Africa, The Ipcress
File, and Dances
With Wolves

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time he started writing music for films back in 1959, John Barry had already conquered the British pop music scene, a feat he was to repeat in the movie world with even more spectacular results. To most filmgoers, he is best-known for his dynamic James Bond scores (of which he has written 11 to date), while to the more discerning fan he is the man behind such memorable soundtracks as Zulu, The Ipcress File, The Dove, and Body Heat. A five time Oscar winner, for Born Free (best song and score), The Lion In Winter, Out Of Africa, and Dances With Wolves, Barry is not only the most honoured British composer in Academy Award history, but also something of a music and film industry legend.

Sought after by the world's top film-makers for his music, the list of directors he has worked with reads like a who's who: Bryan Forbes, John Schlesinger, Arthur Penn, Carol Reed, Blake Edwards, and Richard Lester, while more recently he has been working with Richard Attenborough on the forthcoming bio-pic based on the life of Charlie Chaplin. Other current projects include Movieola, a newly-recorded album of film themes, and The Bodyguard, the latest Kevin Costner film. It's all a far cry from how he started studying composition and orchestration by post during his national service!

When I got the chance to talk to John Barry about his long career, during a rare break in his busy schedule, my first thought was to ask him if things really had begun for him that way. "Absolutely - I used to get a magazine called Downbeat, which was the big jazz magazine when jazz was the 'in' music.

"While in the Army, I saw Downbeat one day, and there was this small ad which a guy called Bill Russo had taken. He'd just left the Stan Kenton Band, and was living in Chicago where he was giving lessons in composition and orchestration. However, at the time there were all sorts of restrictions in England with regard to the dollar, which didn't really help matters for me.

"Anyway, before I was able to do anything about this I went to Egypt with the army for a year, then on to Cyprus, and it was while there that an Armenian asked if I wanted to buy some dollars. I used to go down to his shop once a week with my army pay, buy American dollars from him, put them in an envelope, and send them to Bill Russo in Chicago. I took the whole composition and orchestration course by post while based in Cyprus!"

Once discharged from the army, Barry was able to use his newly acquired skills to obtain work, doing musical arrangements, for names like Jack Parnell and John Dankworth. However, it was the mid-Fifties when the big band era was drawing to a close, and films like The Blackboard jungle (which introduced Bill Hayley's Rock Around The Clock to the world) were ushering in an entirely new musical culture.

Though eager to be part of this new movement, Barry nevertheless found progress too slow for his liking, especially as he had moved back to his hometown of York, where he had been born in 1933. He hit on the idea of forming his own group, recruiting three ex Army colleagues, and three local musicians, and The John Barry Seven was born.