The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

Just as you could identify a Bacharach song within a couple of bars during the 1960s, the same could be said for a John Barry film score with those trademark shimmering strings and twangy guitars. Of course he made his name with all those classic Bond films but my personal favorite score of his is 'The Ipcress File' from '65 and starring Michael Caine. Like all of his best scores (think also 'Goldfinger' and 'Midnight Cowboy') it has a haunting quality that stays with you long after the closing credits. The UK's most successful film composer (5 Oscars) who's music I'm sure will continue to thrill and delight movie lovers for generations to come.

Sarah,
John Barry's music is very inspirational to me, and indeed we have lost great one!
The Ipcress file was a cool film, and I love all of Michael Caine's 6o's spy pictures...
As a young lad, coming home from school and putting on a John Barry soundtrack was very
thrilling....my favorite album from the Bond genre is Thunderball...
R.I.P. Mr. Barry

RIP John Barry!I commemorate him with Dionne's great take on the fantastic "Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", which was written by him and Leslie Bricusse for "Thunderball".

in the (london ) Telegraph obituary it mentions that John Barry worked with Hal David.... what songs???

David

the song in question is "we have all the time in the world" sang by Louis Armstrong.
music by John Barry and lyrics by Hal David,,,,bye Gabba

My personal favorite of John Barry's scores is the evocatively beautiful MIDNIGHT COWBOY harmonica score. I have yet to hear an orchestral score which so thoroughly captures the character of a story and its' characters.

Among the composers for Grown-Ups spoken of this site, his work will truly be missed!

Best to All,

Jerry

I was so saddened to hear of John barry's passing. I love his music. Film scores don't come much better than John Barry's.

One of my favourite John Barry themes.....


R.I.P. Maestro... and thank you for all your beautiful music...

"blue"

In addition to We Have All The Time In The World from the Bond film On her Majesty’s Secret Service Hal David also provided the lyric to John Barry's theme for Moonraker sung by Shirley Bassey.

As a boy I can remember JB with his group The John Barry Seven.

A sad loss.

Around about the time of the John Barry Seven (see link below) his arrangements were starting to feature on recordings by the likes of Adam Faith. I know that he arranged Faith's 1960 recording of Bacharach & David's 'With Open Arms' and I'm just wondering how many other Bacharach songs he got to arrange/orchestrate over the years.

Yes, he was undoubtedly a unique talent who's left us a vast legacy of great music. The YouTube video features the John Barry Seven from 1960 with JB himself on trumpet.

'Diamonds are forever' by Shirley Bassey is beyond words:

Here is John Barry's haunting theme to 'The Ipcress file'. The lead instrument is called a cimbalom and is apparently Hungarian in origin:

To all;

Like many of us here on the forum, I am truly sorry to hear the passing of John Barry! What a great talent!

By the way, even though John Barry was British, he spent the last 30 years living in Oyster Bay New York.

One more John Barry classic, a personal favorite of mine. Nice retrospective clip, too.