Dispatch #330: The Music of John Barry, Part One

 

Composer John Barry

  As a long-time film score aficionado, Jerry Goldsmith and John Barry top the list of my favorite composers. Today's dispatch focuses on the Yorkshire-born John Barry.

  In the early 1970s, the James Bond films began airing on American television for the first time, usually on the ABC Sunday Night Movie. 

  The first of these broadcasts I remember watching was Thunderball in September of 1974, followed by Dr. No two months later. As a kid, I was thrilled not just by the action and exotic locales in both films, but by the stirring music, too—although at the time I didn't note who'd composed it.

   A year later, ABC aired Diamonds Are Forever in September of 1975, followed by You Only Live Twice in November. This time I watched the opening credits closely to learn the name of the composer: John Barry.

  Each film contained thrilling sequences set in outer space: in the climax of Diamonds, a satellite laser weapon wreaks havoc on military targets, while YOLT opened with the abduction of an American spacecraft in Earth orbit. 

  John Barry's lush score elevated both sequences: in Diamonds, it's his track 007 and Counting, while for YOLT, it's Capsule in Space.

  The following year, in December 1976, the Dino DeLaurentis remake of King Kong hit theaters. Although it paled in comparison to the 1933 original (which I'd already seen on TV by that point), I loved the '76 Kong for all its flaws. 

  In fact, King Kong became the very first film I ever went back to see more than once in the theater (it would be five months before I would do so again—when Star Wars came out in the summer of 1977).

  

  Aside from Kong himself, a big reason I returned to see the film was to experience the magnificent John Barry score. I mean, who'd have thought a movie with a guy running around in an ape suit would contain tracks as lovely as John Barry's Arrival on the Island?

  I'd recognized Barry's name in Kong's opening credits as the same fellow who'd done those terrific James Bond scores, and the burgeoning movie music fan in me quickly claimed him as one of my favorites. 

  A few months later, when I stumbled across the original soundtrack LP for Barry's On Her Majesty's Secret Service in the bargain bin at Musicland, it became the first film score I ever purchased—inaugurating a life-long hobby and cementing an appreciation for the talented composer—both of which continue to this day.

  There's more to come in the next dispatch.

  ©2023 SummitCityScribe