Posthumous award for John Barry

John Barry will be honoured posthumously at the Classic Brit Awards
Tom Hocknell10 April 2012
The Weekender

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The Classic BRITS will record a 'first' when it honours composer John Barry with the first posthumous award in the its history. His Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music recognises that 'James Bond' would not have been the same without him, nor 'Zulu', 'Midnight Cowboy', 'Dances with Wolves' and 'Out of Africa'.

However, it is 'Austin Powers', a soundtrack he was not responsible for, that really embodies his work, paying tribute to the Sixties sound that Barry so embodied, through arranging songs for Adam Faith, marrying Jane Birkin and hanging out in swinging London with Michael Caine and Terence Stamp. Newsweek once even described him as "driving off in his E-type jag with his E-type wife"!

While it is sadly not possible to get an actual Jaguar E-type to present his award on Thursday, there will be the next best thing: a live rendition of 'Goldfinger' by Dame Shirley Bassey and the London Chamber Orchestra. Like all of Barry's work, it's set to be show-stopping. Listen to the man himself: Barry once gave Tom Jones the following advice on how to sing 'Thunderball'; "Take a leaf out of Shirley's book. Get in the studio, sing the hell out of it and leave." Jones took heed and duly held the final note for so long that he fainted in the recording booth! And while Dame Shirley might not take 'show-stopping' to this extreme on Thursday, it will be a treat nonetheless.

John Barry was born in York in 1933, the youngest of three children. His father owned local cinemas and the stage for later greatness was clearly set, with Barry operating the projection box on his own by the age of 14. He went on to train as a classical pianist and learned to play the trumpet at 16, leading to him performing as a musician on his National Service in Cyprus. The trumpet would become a favourite instrument in his film scores.

John Barry is widely celebrated for his collaborations on the James Bond film series with his friend lyricist Don Black. He scored 11 Bond films, including the first, 'Dr. No', in 1962, when he was still a relatively untried composer. His last Bond film was 1987's 'The Living Daylights', in which he made a cameo as a composer.

He continued to score films and his 'Beyondness Of Things' studio album took the Official UK Classical Chart's number one spot in 1999, while he executively produced the album 'Here's to the Heroes' by The Ten Tenors in 2006. Current Bond composer David Arnold produced the shimmering collection of collaborations 'Shaken and Stirred' in 1997, which revisited some of Barry's finest moments. Arnold referred to him as the "Guvnor" and described meeting him as "touching the hem of God's frock."

John Barry died aged 77 on 30 January 2011.

Following the Classic BRIT Awards, the Royal Albert Hall will host a memorial concert to celebrate the life of John Barry on 20 June 2011. Profits from this concert will benefit the newly established John Barry Scholarship for Film Composition at the Royal College of Music in London.

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