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BBC News - Bond composer John Barry dies aged 77:

Composer John Barry, famous for his work on Born Free, Out of Africa and the James Bond films, has died in New York of a heart attack aged 77.

He composed one of my fav Disney scores, The Black Hole. I later found he did it around the same time as doing Moonraker and so both speak the same musical vocabulary in terms of keys, chords, and orchestration, and fit together nicely.

In spite of his many awards, he wasn't perfect. He also did the best forgotten Lone Ranger film from 1981. :)

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From:

thelongshot.livejournal.com

I actually wasn't aware of him until "Dances With Wolves" came out. My sister was obsessed with that film and bought the soundtrack and wanted my help in finding more about him. It is only then that I found out that he was the long-time composer for Bond. I also found out he did Midnight Cowboy (which I wasn't familiar with the movie, but I was familiar with Faith No More's cover of the theme.)

I remember seeing that Lone Ranger film in the theater. There is part of me who wants to see it again to see how bad that film was. The only thing I remember clearly is that President Grant was in the film and that there is some sort of assasination attempt on him.

From:

acroyear70.livejournal.com

I wasn't aware of him 'til getting The Black Hole score on iTunes (like 20,000 Leagues, it's the only place to get it) and seeing his name on it. Later when I started pulling my Bond scores out of mothballs I realized the connection.

I saw bits of the film recently (well, a couple of years ago), and I guess what is bothersome is that it is *very* slow-paced, in ways that worked for westerns in the 50s but just didn't fly in the post-Star Wars world.

I always had a strangely "detached" feeling about it, like there wasn't really anybody driving the action, things just happened, people just reacted. I have the same feeling about ET, which is perhaps why I actually don't like ET as much as most others do.