John Barry's love of music was fed by a passion for film. Hanging around his father's cinemas in his neighbourhood, he developed a taste for moving pictures and for music. From the age of 14, John Prendergast, as he still called himself, knew how to work projectors, and loved to see, and hear above all, the shows that his father put on. After getting to know and assimilating the film music of the post-war era, he decided to study music and learn not only trumpet and piano, but also composition and arrangement.
His years of military service were also decisive, as he served three years as an army musician. In the evenings, he would go to jazz concerts with bands from near his barracks. When he returned to civilian life at the start of the 1950s, John Barry found himself carried away by the wave of rock'n'roll that was sweeping the western world. What some called "the devil's music" was a fertile soil for aspirant musical arrangers, composers, performers and musicians. And so it was naturally with rock music that Barry made his professional entrance into the music world. In 1957, he formed his first group: The John Barry 7 (JB7). After several concerts and a deal with EMI, in 1959 the band put on a show for the BBC's "Drumbeat" programme. John Barry took on his friend Adam Faith for the occasion, and had him perform several songs, one of which would top the English charts (What do you want?, arranged by Barry and the JB7 pianist, Les Reed). There followed a series of hits: Hit And Miss, Black Stockings, Walk Don’t Run...
Create a free account to keep reading
