It’ll be for others to write proper obituaries, but I wanted to acknowledge the wonderful John Barry, who’s death was announced this morning at 77.
From James Bond to The Persuaders, Born Free to Dances With Wolves, and The Ipcress File to the Midnight Cowboy, Barry’s music was exceptional, and reached hundreds of millions. He’ll forever be associated with James Bond, working on 11 of the films, but there was plenty more to his oeuvre. Anyone who’s ever seen films like Midnight Cowboy or Born Free, will understand how important his score was to those films. And perhaps most successfully in latter years, the same is true of Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves.
He won five Academy Awards and was made a Fellow of BAFTA. He wrote musicals, and had his work feature in the singles chart.
I can recommend Themology as a good introduction, and at just £3.99, you should jump at it. Although this version seems to have a couple of fewer tracks than mine does. Nonetheless, everyone should have some John Barry in their CD collection or on their iPod.
More at the BBC and Reuters.