Interview copyright © Damian Michael Barcroft 2021
An exclusive interview with Geoff Leonard, former independent record producer specialising in the works of John Barry and British TV theme compilations and owner of the John Barry website. Geoff is also co-author of three books on John Barry and has written liner notes for many soundtrack albums of composers such as John Barry, Roy Budd, Ron Grainer, Maurice Jarre and Johnny Harris.
DAMIAN: Geoff, tell me about yourself and how you first became interested in the music of John Barry.
GEOFF: I was the second eldest in a family of three boys and a girl, and in the late fifties/early sixties in Bristol, we led a rather sheltered life. My mother wasn’t too keen on ‘pop’ music, she didn’t like me listening to Radio Luxembourg – the only radio station playing proper pop music back then – and as I have no memory of Drumbeat – Barry’s first big TV success in 1959, I can only assume the television was turned off at that time during that summer.
Bear in mind that BBC was the only channel we could then receive at that time. ITV had started a few years previously but you had to purchase a new TV set to be able to receive it. I think I remember mum expressing outrage at the general appearance of one Adam Faith, and as he was a regular on Drumbeat, that might explain it.
I really want to be able to say I saw the JB7 [The John Barry Seven] on Drumbeat, but in all honesty, I cannot recall it. Even if I saw part of a show, as seems likely seeing it ran for twenty-two weeks, at eleven years old I probably wouldn’t have been aware of the band and Barry. Eleven was very young in terms of appreciating pop music in those days, quite unlike now. I’ve even examined the details of a Saturday’s evening’s BBC TV output from that period, and frustratingly I can definitely remember watching the closing overs of England v. India at cricket which directly preceded Drumbeat.
I can’t remember the first occasion on which I became really aware of his music, but it was probably through watching the weekly Saturday night BBC TV programme, Juke Box Jury, which used his ‘Hit & Miss’ composition as the signature tune from 1960 onwards.
There was also a Sunday morning BBC radio programme entitled Easy Beat, for which he wrote the theme. It was required listening before the walk to catch the 11 o’clock service at our local church. For the first few months of Easy Beat, The John Barry Seven were resident band, but I think they had been replaced by Bert Weedon by the time I tuned in.
The John Barry Seven soon vied with The Shadows for the position of Britain’s top small band. Although I was keen on The Shadows, too, there was some indefinable quality about the John Barry sound which made me want to start collecting his recordings from then onwards. Indeed, ‘Walk Don’t Run’ was the first 45 I ever bought, albeit a second-hand copy!
I think I paid two shillings for it – full priced singles were about six shillings and eight pence – from a shop in Gloucester Road, Bristol called Wookey & Jones. They also sold second-hand TV sets, as I recall. I must have listened to that record hundreds of times in the attic of our family home – the only place I was allowed to play music at a decent volume level – marvelling at Vic Flick’s guitar solo, which was so different from the other versions of ‘Walk Don’t Run’ released at the time. He has since told me that EMI released the take on which he felt the guitar tremelo arm effect was slightly overdone, and out of tune – which might explain my fascination! And the sound coming from those big old-fashioned speakers has never been matched. I can almost hear that opening drum sound from ‘Walk Don’t Run’ and smell the rather musty scent of the attic, prior to it being modernised.
As I grew older, I continued to collect John Barry records, which had become more and more experimental – particularly the ‘B’ sides of his singles. The famous guitar sound was now beginning to share top billing with strings. The very last track on his first studio album, Stringbeat, was entitled ‘The Challenge’, and some critics felt this was a theme written for a film yet to be made. It was in such contrast to compositions such as ‘Hit & Miss’, from only a year or so before, that even at my tender age I could tell a change was on the way. I came across his soundtrack to Beat Girl, again, in a second-hand shop. This had been an X-certificate – over 18 only film – so it wasn’t so surprising that I’d missed both the film and the album when they were originally released in 1960.
This, too, contained tracks unlike anything I’d heard before, in particular, jazz-styled numbers like ‘Time Out’ and ‘The Off Beat’. I like to think I bought all his records in those early days, mostly as soon as they come out. Some I definitely remember buying new, like ‘Starfire’, ‘The Menace’ and, of course, ‘The James Bond Theme’. I also bought an EP called ‘Theme Successes’ new for about 11 shillings and 6 pence, but ‘The John Barry Sound’ EP cost five shillings second-hand. I remind myself that before I got a regular paper-round in about 1962, pocket-money was one shilling a week which eventually rose to two and six. So the buying of new records was an absolute luxury.
Indeed, Stringbeat, my first LP, was a Christmas present in 1962 and the following year came the soundtrack album to From Russia With Love – Barry’s first real dramatic film score. I must have bored the entire family and guests almost to death by insisting on playing it repeatedly downstairs during the festivities. I was allowed down from the attic because film music seemed a mite more respectable!
Barry’s Bond and Elizabeth Taylor In London albums succeeded not only in getting me hooked on film music, but also on the cinema in general. The sixties was a great time for cinema-going in Britain and I saw all the major films – some of them more than once. From that time onwards, I became a dedicated Barry fan and record collector.
DAMIAN: At what point did you become a respected authority on Barry with record companies asking you to write the liner notes?
GEOFF: In November 1989, I’d had the idea of releasing some of John Barry’s music on CD in an effort to publicise a book on which I was working with two other staunch Barry fans – Gareth Bramley and Pete Walker. About which more later. I established that EMI – Barry’s original record company – had no plans to re-issue anything themselves, however, they were prepared to license out material and this led to Play It Again’s first release, Beat Girl/Stringbeat.
As we had very little knowledge of how to go about creating and releasing a CD, I approached James Fitzpatrick and David Stoner of Silva Screen Records, a fairly new company, which specialised in soundtracks and had already released a couple of Barry albums. They helped considerably and also agreed to distribute the CD.
A year or so later, David Stoner attempted to license some Barry tracks from Polydor for a compilation album, but when he explained what he wanted, their own commercial division stepped in and decided they wanted to do one of their own. This is always the risk you take, when approaching a company in this way!
Anyway, knowing of my keenness, David suggested I contact Polydor and offer CD notes, as he was fairly sure they would not have the expertise themselves. I did so, and he was right, they were happy to accept my help, and together with Pete Walker, wrote my first ever CD notes.
After that, we did a lot of Barry projects for Silva Screen, more for our own label, Play It Again, and gradually became known for our detailed John Barry notes, though we also did a few for other composers, particularly Roy Budd.
DAMIAN: How did you meet Pete Walker and Gareth Bramley, the other two co-authors of your first book on Barry, A Life in Music?
GEOFF: Previously, at some point during the early eighties, I had decided it was a good idea to write a book about John Barry. I’m not sure why, maybe it was because there was so little ever written about him, and now he lived in America, one only rarely saw or heard him in the media. Bear in mind there was no internet at the time so research was no easy matter! Through my brother, John, who was head of sound at the RSC at that time, I got in touch with Trevor Peacock, who had worked with Barry on Passion Flower Hotel, and through him, Vic Flick.
At that stage I realised it was going to be tough going on my own, and then through sheer chance noticed what appeared to be a fellow Barry fan advertising for rare Barry records – some so rare I knew they didn’t exist! – in a monthly magazine called Record Collector, which is still going strong.
I contacted him – Gareth Bramley – and he replied saying he was too busy with bank exams to help, but coincidentally he’d also been approached by another Barry fan, Pete Walker, who had wanted to write an article on Barry for Record Collector.
Cutting a lengthy story short, Pete and I made contact and started researching and writing, and were eventually joined by Gareth, who being an avid collector, concentrated on the discography side of things. And that combination took us through ‘A Life in Music’ and ‘Midas Touch’, before just Pete and I researched and wrote ‘Hit and Miss – The Story of the John Barry Seven’ without Gareth.
DAMIAN: ‘A Life in Music’ and ‘Midas Touch’ are excellent accounts of Barry’s life and career, lavishly illustrated and have an extremely detailed discography. However, in addition to all this, the book benefits greatly from the cooperation of some of his famous collaborators over the years. How confident were you that you’d be able to get the cooperation of any of the key players before you began the project?
GEOFF: I don’t think we had any great expectations at the outset. Vic Flick proved an excellent raconteur, as did EMI engineer Malcolm Addey, Bobby Graham and Alan Bown – from the JB7 days – but others proved very difficult to engage, or, indeed, contact. Certainly as regards ‘A Life in Music’, we had virtually no help from John Barry, but didn’t realise at the time that a rival book was being written with his cooperation. At least, with his cooperation for a while.
Of course, research turned up interviews with directors such as Peter Hunt, Bryan Forbes, John Glen and Terence Young, which proved most illuminating, and eventually we found interviews Barry himself had given, via visits to the British Newspaper Library and BBC Written Archives, who were both extremely helpful, but only rarely did we get the chance to speak directly with these people. Don Black also proved helpful, especially after we’d released The Don Black Songbook on CD!
After both books came out, more-or-less simultaneously, Barry publicly dismissed the rival book and championed ours!
DAMIAN: Tell me about the research and writing process of ‘A Life in Music’, ‘The Man With the Midas Touch’ and ‘Hit and Miss’.
GEOFF: This tends to vary, but I would say my own strength is research and Pete’s is writing. Some of my knowledge is in my own head, of course, so I have to type it all out, and then Pete can add his own take on the subject and mould it into something which is hopefully interesting and accurate. Occasionally I will write complete paragraphs and Pete might only suggest a couple of changes. However, on other occasions he might suggest a totally different approach.
Researching at such places as the BBC and the BFI is easier because we always go together and simply split the tasks, collating everything later on. I suppose it’s an unusual way of working as we live some 80 miles apart, so most discussion is by email or phone, but it works and we’ve never fallen out over anything!
DAMIAN: Why did you stop producing CDs under the Play It Again Records label?
GEOFF: It was basically a combination of economics and the unavailability of music that could be licensed. The TV Theme albums sold quite well to begin with, but our final one, The A to Z Volume 4, sold poorly, partly, I feel, because much of the content consisted of lesser known material. We had released virtually every popular theme that could be licensed, so there didn’t seem to be a way of releasing any further TV theme albums and still at least recoup costs.
As regards Barry film scores, and indeed, some by other composers, I found it impossible to license anything without providing unaffordable guarantees to the companies concerned. To give an example, one company wanted a 3-CD deal with guaranteed sales of 10,000 units per CD — it just wasn’t realistic.
DAMIAN: I’ve been listening to Barry’s first records on three excellent compilation albums, The John Barry Sound: The Mono Years 1957-1962 and The John Barry Seven: Hits, Misses, Beat Girls & 007s and John Barry: The Early Years.
For fans such as myself who are more familiar with his James Bond and Hollywood scores, there are lots of surprises to be found in these collections of his early work such as hearing Barry himself actually singing.
GEOFF: John could sing in tune, which is always a good start, but it was just an average – though deep – voice and he lacked the charisma of some of the popular singers of the day. It all sounded a little dull!
DAMIAN: There are tracks which encompass elements of pop, jazz and rock and roll, but what musical genre would you say generally best describes Barry’s early work?
GEOFF: The very early vocals were simply an attempt to copy the sound of American rock ‘n’ Roll singers or groups, and failed to sell. Then he turned to instrumentals, which did better, but really only started to work when he brought in guitarist Vic Flick and pianist Les Reed. From 1960-62, Barry, mainly through the Seven, released a succession of pure pop music records, focusing on the guitar, highly popular at the time, but also adding the string sound which had made Adam Faith’s records so distinctive and popular. This was the hit period for which I would say he is most remembered.
DAMIAN: Some of these records of the late 50s and early 60s – so obviously predating the release of the first James Bond film, Dr. No in 1962 – display musical traits that would later be associated with the Bond theme and 007 soundtracks more generally.
GEOFF: From very early on Barry had wanted to score films, and there’s no doubt he used some of his early JB7 records as experiments to further those aims. For example, the library music tracks he wrote for Chappell in 1959, were designed for use by TV or film dramas, and, although what he wrote for Beat Girl at about the same time, is somewhat different, the basic brass ideas are present in some tracks, including the main title. When he scored Never Let Go shortly afterwards, you can hear the influence of tracks such as ‘Beat for Beatniks’ and ‘Big Fella’, and this carried over to future projects, such as ‘The James Bond Theme’.
DAMIAN: Is it possible to divide what we might describe as Barry-esque or Barry’s trademark sound into the following three main phases: early pop/jazz/rock and roll, the full orchestral scores for film and television and finally his more gentle and intimate concept albums such as the hauntingly beautiful The Beyondness of Things and Eternal Echoes or is it a lot more complicated than this?
GEOFF: You can certainly spot the change from pop to full-time film music which I would say started with From Russia with Love in 1963, but from then onwards it’s more complex because of the variety of projects he tackled. For instance, during the rest of the sixties he had the Bryan Forbes films alongside the Bonds, and ‘swinging sixties’ romps such as The Knack, a spy film, The Ipcress File — so differently scored from a Bond, alongside epics like The Lion in Winter. They all had a Barry trademark sound, but all very different.
Then into the seventies, you had Mary, Queen of Scots, alongside Walkabout, The Last Valley, Robin and Marian and King Kong. Maybe not quite as varied as the sixties list, but still impressively different from each other.
Once he had settled in America, and especially after he had married in the late seventies, his trademark became much more string dominated, often attached to romantic films. Even some of his Bond films reflected that, like Moonraker and Octopussy, but at the same time he was also writing Somewhere in Time, Body Heat and Frances.
He didn’t say as such, but I’ve often wondered if the concept albums he did towards the end of his career came about as a direct result of him not getting what he considered were suitable films to score.
DAMIAN: I know that Barry was obsessed with film scores from an early age, but are there any particular composers you think directly influenced his work?
GEOFF: He often talked about growing up with films scored by Max Steiner, Alfred Newman, Korngold and the like, but I don’t hear anything in their work that appears to have influenced him.
DAMIAN: How significant do you think Beat Girl, Barry’s first film score, was in highlighting the potential for soundtrack releases in the UK?
GEOFF: It sold reasonably well at the time, but to be honest, that was probably more as a result of Adam Faith having three songs on it. I think it was later film musical albums such as Cliff Richard with The Young Ones that helped more in this respect, but we have to remember that Barry himself didn’t have huge success with soundtracks in the UK; they fared much better in America.
DAMIAN: I don’t know about yourself but I’ve found that having a passion for film and television scores and collecting soundtracks is a lonely hobby. I never had any friends during my childhood or teenage years who shared my enthusiasm and most people weren’t even aware of soundtracks beyond Grease, Dirty Dancing or maybe a Disney film. What were your experiences like?
GEOFF: I had one friend who was a huge Barry fan during our teenage years, but we lost touch after we both started work, so after that I knew nobody else who was even the slightest interested in soundtracks, whoever the composer was!
DAMIAN: Also, prior to the internet, soundtracks were really difficult to get hold of weren’t they?
GEOFF: They certainly were. In fact, it wasn’t really until I started visiting London in the late seventies that I managed to start filling gaps in my collection, through visits to specialist shops like 58 Dean Street.
You might see the occasional Bond album in record shops on release, but, from a Barry perspective, the chances of finding a score such as say, The Last Valley, was remote. I found albums in London to films I had no idea existed, let alone scored by Barry!
DAMIAN: Can you remember buying your first soundtrack?
GEOFF: The first one I actually bought as opposed to being given, was Elizabeth Taylor In London (1963). Beat Girl was acquired about the same time, but obviously a few years after its original release in 1960. CD-wise, I suppose Beat Girl/Stringbeat is prized by me because it was my idea and our first Play It Again CD.
DAMIAN: What was the first Bond film you saw at the cinema?
GEOFF: It’s a bit hazy now, being so long ago, but I have a feeling it was From Russia with Love, by which time I could legally see it without being accompanied by an adult. I saw Dr. No some time later, because in those days films often “came round again.”
DAMIAN: We’d better not get into the debate regarding who actually wrote what as the controversy is well documented elsewhere but simply say that Monty Norman is credited with writing the Bond theme while Barry created the arrangements. Perhaps a far more interesting question – albeit undoubtedly an equally difficult one – Norman also wrote the film score for Dr. No which is good but hardly in the same league as when Barry took the baton in From Russia With Love. And, although the films seemed almost instantly iconic and unique owing to aspects such as Terence Young’s direction, Peter Hunt’s editing, Ken Adam’s production design and Maurice Binder’s famous opening gunbarrel and title sequences, do you think the James Bond scores – and, indeed the film series itself – would have had quite the same impact, longevity and become such a cultural phenomenon if Norman had continued and the scores and songs never had the Barryesque Bond sound?
GEOFF: Norman was never really a film music composer so it’s hard to visualize what might have happened in those circumstances. I don’t think he would have been capable of producing a series of Bond scores, regardless of style. The producers didn’t ask him back for From Russia With Love purely because they realised his limitations on Dr. No, whatever other reasons are posited. I’m sure the films would have continued to be a success almost no matter who scored them — there’s quite a few composers who could have done this successfully — but they would not include Monty Norman, who was basically a song writer.
DAMIAN: Barry wrote the music for eleven Bond films and, in addition to the Bond theme from Dr. No, that iconic Barry/Bond sound first became truly apparent with the title sequence of From Russia With Love – which was actually instrumental instead of using the theme song that became the norm from Goldfinger onwards apart from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – and is perhaps best exemplified by tracks such as ‘007 Takes the Lektor’ (also From Russia With Love), ‘Oddjob’s Pressing Engagement’ and ‘Bond Back in Action’ (Goldfinger), ‘Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ (Thunderball) and possibly his crowning achievement, every single perfect note of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Now, David Arnold consummately and spectacularly recaptured this Barryesque sound with tracks like ‘White Knight’ and ‘Company Car’ (Tomorrow Never Dies) and ‘Blunt Instrument’ and.. well, like On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the score for Casino Royale is pretty much perfect.
And yet, when Arnold deviates from this sort of Barryesque template, as he did perhaps most significantly with Die Another Day, it doesn’t quite work in my opinion. To what extent do you think a Bond composer should stick to the traditional ingredients or formula as opposed to experimenting to make it fresh and pursue their own musical direction?
GEOFF: What we never know on these occasions is what guidance the composer gets from the director and producers. Do they ask for a “traditional” Bond score of the kind David Arnold gave us for Tomorrow Never Dies — which I think worked very well, after the Serra problem -– or is the composer left very much to his own devices. Arnold was able to do his own thing to a certain extent but still retained the basics of what we’d become used to hearing, but Thomas Newman scored his films as he might have scored any action thriller, and although I know some liked this way, it didn’t break any new ground for me. The Bond “sound” has become so well established, it’s very hard to deviate too much, in my opinion, whoever the composer.
DAMIAN: Can we agree that although clearly referencing a sixties sound, some of the aforementioned best examples of Barry and Arnold represent the classic but also timeless sound of Bond?
GEOFF: Yes, they are timeless in many respects. I know some who say time and the films have moved on and Barry – in particular – could never score one successfully in 2021 or whenever, but I disagree. He knew the subject matter so well, and always had the talent to write what would work on the screen. He could have scored Spectre without any difficulty and in a highly unique way — he always did that with Bond films!
DAMIAN: What are your thoughts regarding the more dated and obviously period soundtracks such as Live and Let Die (George Martin), The Spy Who Loved Me (Marvin Hamlisch) and For Your Eyes Only (Bill Conti)?
GEOFF: I enjoyed them in the films themselves, I thought they worked well, but less so as albums to listen to away from the films. Particularly For Your Eyes Only, which I rarely play. Funnily enough, they all had excellent theme songs.
DAMIAN: I do enjoy the cheesy sort of disco-pop sound of tracks like ‘Bond ‘77’ (The Spy Who Loved Me) and ‘Runaway’ (For Your Eyes Only) but do you think scores like this could have only worked for Roger Moore’s Bond?
GEOFF: It’s hard to imagine them being used elsewhere in the series, that’s true. I don’t think Bond should “do disco” but I did enjoy tracks like ‘Bond ‘77’, which certainly worked well in the film.
DAMIAN: And Barry’s final Bond score, The Living Daylights, was also very period with its combination of 80’s synth and orchestra.
GEOFF: Yes, Barry wanted an update in sound to reflect the new Dalton era, though it turned out to be a very short one, through no fault of his own. It might have been period but for me worked perfectly for that film. It would have been interesting to hear how Barry would have approached Licence to Kill, because I felt Kamen’s score, although good, just didn’t quite get it right.
DAMIAN: I didn’t much care for Eric Serra’s score for GoldenEye but what did you make of it?
GEOFF: I thought the score worked in a few places but was obviously missing the Bond theme, hence the decision to re-score the tank scene. For me, it’s not a satisfying experience listening to Serra’s score away from the film. I realise the film always comes first, and any score album is often just a bonus, but other Bond scores usually managed both successfully. Michael Wilson himself said he thought “the jury was still out” on Serra’s score. I know Barry thought a new approach might work based on what he had previously heard from Serra, but when he saw the film he felt that Serra had gone in another direction. I think the producers knew they were in trouble and the Bond theme is usually a good way out!
DAMIAN: And you said earlier that Thomas Newman scored Skyfall and Spectre as he might have scored any action thriller which I thought was a pretty accurate assessment. As a long-time collaborator of director Sam Mendes, it’s obvious why Newman got the job but I thought these scores were rather lacklustre and had too much of the Newman sound and not enough Bond.
GEOFF: I can only agree with that. There’s much to admire about Newman as a composer, but notwithstanding the fact that the style of Bond films have changed in many ways, even since David Arnold’s last one, neither of those films had a score that sounded like a Bond score to me. I’m not suggesting his scores didn’t work, it’s just that I felt they could have worked even better, had he taken a more traditional approach!
DAMIAN: Hans Zimmer is another fine composer with a very distinctive sound but do you think he’s the right choice for the new Bond film, No Time to Die?
GEOFF: On the evidence of his body of work, I wouldn’t have said he was a natural fit for a Bond score. However, he is clearly highly talented and will likely have risen to the occasion. A lot will depend on the nature of the film, and only time will tell us that!
DAMIAN: What’s your favourite Bond score?
GEOFF: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
DAMIAN: Mine too. Favourite Bond song?
GEOFF: ‘Goldfinger’.
DAMIAN: Same. Favorite Bond film?
GEOFF: From Russia with Love, though I admit this changes!
DAMIAN: I’d have to say On Her Majesty’s Secret Service or Casino Royale. And favourite Bond?
GEOFF: Timothy Dalton.
DAMIAN: Really?, mine too! I’m also very fond of George Lazenby because I think he did a fantastic job under the most difficult of circumstances, but I’d say Dalton was the most talented actor to play the part and I thought Dalton looked perfect as Bond. When I read Fleming it’s him that I see. Away from Bond, what are some of your favourite Barry scores?
GEOFF: The Ipcress File, The Knack, The Lion In Winter, Midnight Cowboy, Walkabout, The Tamarind Seed, King Kong, Body Heat, Dances with Wolves, Chaplin.
DAMIAN: Do you have any plans for more Barry books or CD releases?
GEOFF: Delighted to say that I am about to publish my latest book in collaboration with Pete Walker and Jon Burlingame, after having taken the best part of two years to complete. ‘Music by John Barry’ is a detailed examination of over forty Barry scores, representing every stage of his career from his first, Beat Girl, to his last, Enigma. At almost 500 pages, it’s by far the longest book in which I have been involved.
Presented chronologically, each chapter focuses on a specific score; several of them Bond ones. Since Jon Burlingame has already written extensively about 007 in his book, ‘The Music of James Bond’, Pete Walker and I have provided fresh perspectives on those Bond films featured. Also included are essays on Zulu, The Ipcress File, Midnight Cowboy and Body Heat alongside Oscar-winners Born Free, The Lion in Winter and Dances with Wolves, plus many more besides. The book is expected to be available within the next two months once the picture content has been finalised.
As for CDs, despite wrapping up Play It Again a good while back, I decided to start another label, Windmill Records, in order to issue the occasional CD. The first of these – John Barry – The Early Years – was released about seven years ago; the second, and latest, The Stringbeat Years – Songs accompanied by John Barry, within the last twelve months; this, a comprehensive 4-CD box set containing virtually every song arranged and accompanied by Barry during his pre-Bond years. So, as spasmodic as these releases may be, hopefully, when they do arise, they will find favour by filling a gap in the market.
DAMIAN: Well, good luck with those Geoff and I’ll certainly be adding them to my collection. Hopefully we can talk again when the book is out but for now, thank you very much indeed.
GEOFF: My pleasure, I enjoyed it!
More information about John Barry can be found via the link below where you will also be able to purchase some of the aforementioned books and CDs:
Interview copyright © Damian Michael Barcroft 2021