Topic: John Barry – The Essential Early Recordings
John Barry – The Essential Early Recordings
I picked up this 2cd set the other week, Discogs says it came out last year (2018), on the Primo label.
Anybody else have this album?
Anybody know much about the music included on it?
There's two pages of liner notes, but the font's about .005pt, I can't read it even with a magnifying glass, so I don't appreciate the context of what I'm listening to. I gather some of it's from his early soundtracks, but that the John Barry 7 also released several singles.
Much of it sounds more like early rock'n'roll than what I expect from the classic Bond soundtracks, or at closest jump blues. Several toons are early rock'n'roll covers.
Lots of "surf" guitar as the melodic lead, usually a plinkety-ploink staccato counterpoint (rhythm guitar or keyboard), both elements heavily echoed. Despite Barry himself being a trumpet player, horns are not prominent in most of these toons, or if they are it usually sounds like a baritone sax doubling the bass underneath everything else.
When the original Bond theme arrives at the very end, the surf guitar vamp sounds similar to the rest of the album. But then the big brass section fanfare comes in, and it's unprecedented. If this compilation is the music he was doing before he got the Bond gig, there was nothing to suggest the kind of sound he was about to give the world.
That's just my tonedeaf musical analysis from the first couple listens.
As I say, I literally can't read the liner notes so don't fully appreciate the context. Any insight you experts can give me will be much appreciated. (I bet Barbel has all the original records memorised!)