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During April the BBC screened a two-part series on Royal Weddings. During the segment relating to the marriage of the heavy drinker, Princess Margaret to Anthony Armstrong-Jones, Barry's "The Beyondness of Things" track was played throughout.  It fitted like a glove!

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"Elizabeth Taylor in London soundtrack danced to the rebel screen queen's tune"
"Composed by John Barry, the 1963 TV film's soundtrack is a fitting tribute to Hollywood's first rock'n'roll starlet" by Rob Fitzpatrick, Friday 25 March 2011, 16.20 GMT, guardian.co.uk
31 March 2011
Steven Saragossi M.A.

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On February 4, 2011 Fali R. Singara did a special show live of John Barry's best themes and his legacy to Bond on All India Radio in Mumbai.

Over 300 people called in and sms-ed (texted) their comments during the three hours he was on live. Fali did the show in two segments - Bond & Non Bond work.

The Top 3 favourite Barry movie scores according to Indian listeners (other than Bond) were Born Free (number 1), The Lion In Winter & Somewhere In Time. The top 3 Bond scores were From Russia With Love (Number 1), On Her Majesty's Secret Service & Goldfinger.

Almost all the listeners agreed that Matt Monro was the best male vocalist to do a Bond theme while Shirley Bassey was the best female singer.

Ruud Rozemeijer

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Johnny De Little, a talented vocalist much associated with John Barry in the 60s, appeared in several pantomimes during that era. 

In particularly he often appeared at the Swansea Grand Theatre. 

Here are a couple of photos from when he was Dick Whittington there in 1967/8.

Johnny is still singing and can next be seen appearing in Silver Bells Christmas Show at the Phoenix Theatre, Blyth, Northumberland, on 14/15 December, 2010.

In the group photo below, Johnny can be seen centre left, in the brocade tunic.

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It's getting more and more difficult to distinguish between legal and illegal DVD releases. Take Beat Girl. There have been various DVDs issued over the past few years, mainly in America, and none of them very good quality and almost certainly mastered from a video released back in the 90s.

However, a couple of years ago Orbit released a DVD which had all the hallmarks of being a genuine remastered release. Or was it?  I met a representative of Renown Pictures at a film fair, recently, who assured me that this release was not authorised, a point they had just made to Orbit's legal team, and that Renown would be releasing their own, better quality version in 2011.

Buyer beware clearly applies in this case!

Geoff Leonard

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by Geoff Leonard

We are quite proud of this website and of the wealth of information about John Barry it contains. We also like to think it's useful to anybody working on a project involving John Barry, such as a CD release, and Geoff is always willing to help in this respect, if asked.

Therefore, although we are resigned to rarely hear about a new release until it's too late to contribute in any way, we remain rather baffled when a CD is released without some basic but interesting data which could easily have been provided.

Geoff doesn't claim to be the world's leading authority on John Barry, far from it, but if he doesn't know the answer to a question he can usually find out.

Take the new release from Kritzerland, which combines The Whisperers with Equus. The booklet, which has some decent notes and includes part of Bryan Forbes' comments from the original album, gives the details of the original recording of Equus at CTS Wembley, including the engineer and producers.

What data is included about the original recording of The Whisperers?

Nothing! No recording studio, engineer, producer, contractor or date.

We could have provided all that information if we'd been asked or if we'd known that the release was coming.

Sorry for the rant, but we get the impression that, particularly for an American CD release, we are the last people on earth that come to mind when a booklet is being compiled. Don't get me wrong, I've no objection to producers who prefer to do everything themselves, but I'm absolutely sure that if I was producing a re-release of a Barry album originally recorded in the US, if I was missing recording data I would be straight on to Jon Burlingame or Nick Redman for some help. And I would get that help, too. A shame that so many of the independents in the US don't seem to want to look in this direction when the situation is reversed.

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JB's 1999 RAH concert - as it was when the BBC were going to be filming the second half. It got changed when filming didn't go ahead.

The second half of JB's Royal Albert Hall was to have been filmed and would have formed the centre-piece of the 'Omnibus' programme. Unfortunately, they were a few thousand short in the budget department and the idea was abandoned - much to JB's fury!

These things are very expensive to put on, particularly as JB likes a large orchestra. He had designed the programme so many of the 'hits' and new material would be in the second half. But once filming was abandoned, the programme was altered.

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IMDb.com is 20 years old today, October 17, 2010
As part of the celebrations, IMDb founder & CEO Col Needham is going to re-watch the film he saw on video that evening in 1990 - Body Heat!!

John Barry did not approve the Body Heat CD mix by producer John Lasher and apparently regards the resultant CD as "unofficial". He has not spoken to Lasher since it was released.

Miklos Rozsa was the original choice to score Body Heat (as a sort of homage to his score for Double Indemnity - a much earlier film with similarities) but refused, saying he found the film "disgusting".

Rozsa and Barry had shared the bill at the 1972 Filmharmonic concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Geoff Leonard

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In April 1964, the Shirley Bassey/Matt Monro/John Barry concert scheduled for The Colston Hall, Bristol, was cancelled due to poor ticket sales.

Even though it was just before Shirley & John's huge success with Goldfinger, it seems incredible that the concert could not be "sold" on their names alone.  All were well-known in the UK and all had achieved huge success with hit records, concerts and TV appearances.

Just imagine (if it was still possible) having those three legends playing in concert together today - you wouldn't be able to get a ticket!!

Geoff Leonard