The Beyondness of Things

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He won five Oscars, including two for Born Free and one each for The Lion in Winter, Out of Africa and Dances With Wolves. He also won Bafta's Anthony Asquith award for The Lion in Winter, and a Grammy for Dances With Wolves. In 1998 he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. I am glad to have this opportunity to express my great admiration and respect for John Barry's music scores. John Barry (John Barry Prendergast), composer and songwriter, born 3 November 1933; died 30 January 2011

Barry was to subsequently score eleven 007 films between 1962 and 1987, including Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, The Man With The Golden Gun, Moonraker, Octopussy, A View To A Kill, and The Living Daylights. These movies were to produce Bond songs for Tom Jones, Nancy Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Shirley Bassey, Lulu, Rita Coolidge, Duran Duran, A-Ha, and Chrissie Hynde. Writing from one chord to another almost key changing. The melody staying in the logical sense but changes are happening like undercurrents taking the music into another mode his perfection of attach and clarity of harmonies and tone. Many accolades and awards came John Barry’s way in a career spanning over forty years. July 2001 saw him proudly receive an Honorary Doctorate from the University of York. Surrounded by his wife, son, sister June and the Prendergast family, Barry was deeply touched to be honoured by his home city. By the time he was fourteen years old the young John had mastered the intricacies of the projection room, and could run it single handedly. Every day after school would find him in the cinema doing any job which presented itself. It was, after all, a family business and everyone joined in. More importantly, however, he was watching movies every day, and the marriage of music and celluloid was germinating within.To enrich the music was John Barry the Conductor. Mr. Barry always conducted his own work. Watching Mr Barry conduct in recording sessions, his body swaying, his baton jabbing and coaxing, this was the fun of the game for him. To finally stand in a Studio and conduct his finished score with the detail and subtleties that only he could give his music.

I first met Mr Barry at C T S Studios, Bayswater, London in December 1971 when he was scoring Sir Carol Reed's "Follow Me". To my mind there were two John Barrys, the Composer and the Conductor, each culminating in musical style. The work starting from subject matter, a film in rough cut after plotting musical cues with the then director and editor, the weeks and sometimes months of isolation when composing for a project, pulling the elements together however diverse, following his instincts being stylistic as only he could do it to "get a fix" from the blank manuscript paper. The work structured with musical intentions, the character of the writing of the music trenchancy and direction of the scoring and cross referencing, building layer upon layer of musical textures creating complex sounds all starting as dots on paper. In the mid seventies John embarked to do a project in Los Angeles and spent five years living in Beverley Hills and working in Hollywood. He gradually moved from London and settled at Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York, the closest point to England.

A throat cancer scare in 1989 slowed Barry's work rate, but his ambition remained undimmed. In 1998 he released The Beyondness of Things, a "tone poem" unconnected to any film and which he presented as a concert piece. "It's amazing to work without film or without a director or producer," commented Barry, who was appointed OBE in 1999. "I love doing films, but it's been refreshing to work with such total freedom." Another day, however, I mentioned to him that an electronic dance act had recently recorded what they described as a tribute to his television theme to The Persuaders! I played it to him, curious to know what he would make of it. He listened in silence. Then after a pause, he said: "It's not as good as The Persuaders!, is it?" Jewel-case originally with an outer card slipcase. The front insert takes the form of a 7 panel (double-sided) fold-out strip.