Faith had long harboured ambitions to act even before his first hit record and was offered a part in the up and coming British movie, Beat Girl (1960), at that time. Barry (and Faith) then went from strength to strength Faith achieving a swift succession of chart hits, with Barry joining him soon afterwards when the Seven, riding high on the wave of the early sixties instrumental boom, scored with Hit & Miss, Walk Don't Run and Black Stockings. Les Reed, Barry contrived an arrangement considered suited to Faith's soft vocal delivery, and within weeks, the record was number one. Faith had made two or three commercially unsuccessful records before singer/songwriter Johnny Worth, also appearing on Drumbeat, offered him a song he'd just finished entitled What Do You Want? With the assistance of the JB7 pianist, A chance meeting with a young singer named Adam Faith, whilst both were appearing on astage show version of the innovative BBC TV programme, Six-Five Special (1957), led Barry to recommend Faith for a later BBC TV series, Drumbeat (1959), which was broadcast in 1959. A recording contract with EMI soon followed, and although initial releases made by them failed to chart, Barry's undoubted talent showed enough promise to influence the studio management at Abbey Road in allowing him to make his debut as an arranger and conductor for other artists on the EMI roster. This was how The John Barry Seven came intoĮxistence, and Barry successfully launched them during 1957 via a succession of tours and TV appearances. A three year sojourn in the army as a bandsman combined with his evening stints with local jazz bands gave him the idea to ease this passage by forming a small band of his own. Helped by lessons provided locally on piano and trumpet, followed by the more exacting theory taught by tutors as diverse as Dr Francis Jackson of York Minster and William Russo, formerly arranger to Stan Kenton and His Orchestra, he soon became equipped to embark upon his chosen career, but had no knowledge of how one actually got a start in the business. Peters school, he had decided to become a film music composer. As he was brought up in a cinematic environment, he soon began to assimilate the music which accompanied the films he saw nightly to a point when, even before he'd left St. His father, Jack, owned several local cinemas and by the age of fourteen, Barry was capable of running the projection box on his own - in particular, The Rialto in York. It's a broad range for which John Barry could be justly proud.John Barry was born in York, England in 1933, and was the youngest of three children. But I will always remember him for the heart-tugging sentimentality of Born Free. Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley wrote the words and Shirley Bassey sang it ultra-cool for her only Top Ten hit.īarry's sound ranged from those throbbing, horn-driven Bond scores to the swelling orchestras that underpinned the period films. He also composed the music for eleven James Bond films, including the title song to Goldfinger. John Barry won five Oscars for his scores. Born Free won an Academy Award for Best Original song. John Barry composed the music for the title song Don Black wrote the lyrics and British singer Matt Monro sang it. They train her to live in the wild and then release her. It tells the story of Joy and George Adamson, who raise a lion cub in Kenya they name Elsa. I was 13 and I was probably more moved by the story than the music - I bought the book on which the film was based and I still have it. That Ventures-style music would prepare him for the attention-grabbing James Bond scores he composed later. He studied classical piano as a child took a correspondence course in arranging from Bill Russo, a jazz composer who arranged for Stan Kenton, among others and formed a jazz-pop group, called the John Barry Seven, that had some instrumental hits in England in the late 1950s. ![]() His father owned movie theaters in York, England, and the young Barry learned to operate the projectors. The music was composed by John Barry, who died yesterday in New York at the age of 77, following a heart attack.īarry wrote the scores for more than 100 films between 19, including Zulu (1964), The Lion in Winter (1968), and Out of Africa (1985). The first LP I ever bought was the soundtrack to the film Born Free. ![]() John Barry at his piano in 1967, the year both Born Free and You Only Live Twice - the fourth of the 11 James Bond films he scored - were released in theaters.
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