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We are delighted to announce that the soundtrack specialist FSM are releasing John Barry's 'King Kong' on CD. This will be a premiere (legal) release for the album, and although there is no extra music, the sound quality is excellent.

The booklet also benefits from liner notes written by Geoff Leonard, Pete Walker & Steve Woolston.

King Kong (1976) Composed By: John Barry
Item #/Label: FSMCD Vol. 8, No. 8
Available from Screen Archives $16.95

track list:

Music Composed and Conducted by John Barry

1. The Opening 2:14
2. Maybe My Luck Has Changed 1:48
3. Arrival on the Island 2:43
4. Sacrifice -- Hail to the King 7:06
5. Arthusa 2:18
6. Full Moon Domain -- Beauty Is a Beast 4:22
7. Breakout to Captivity 4:06
8. Incomprehensible Captivity 2:52
9. Kong Hits the Big Apple 2:33
10. Blackout in New York/How About Buying Me a Drink 3:20
11. Climb to Skull Island 2:26
12. The End Is at Hand 1:41
13. The End 4:24

Total Time: 42:30

King Kong is one of Hollywood's most legendary creations, from the groundbreaking 1933 original to the highly anticipated Peter Jackson remake. In 1976 producer Dino De Laurentiis struck box-office gold with his own incarnation of the story, starring Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange, and a colossal forty-foot model of Kong. The film was a massive production with ambitious special effects.

Scoring the remake of one of the most famous films in Hollywood history was one of the few composers with the clout and talent to forge ahead with his own style: John Barry. The original's Max Steiner had practically invented the film score genre with the project, yet Barry was known for a completely different approach -- eschewing "Mickey Mousing" in favor of melody, mood and large-scale symphonic structures.

De Laurentiis had sought out Barry for the composer's romantic touch, and Barry responded by making the centerpiece of his score a gorgeous love theme that evoked the "beauty and the beast" angle of the story rather than the widescale destruction -- although Barry's James Bond experience helped in casting the tragedy, menace and suspense with symphonic grandeur. The score produced one of Barry's loveliest themes and is one of his signature works of the '70s, completely different from the Steiner score but with an avid following all its own.

This premiere CD of the 1976 King Kong features the original Reprise Records program of the soundtrack, running 42:30. Although collectors may have acquired a CD of this title on the "Mask" label, that album was an unauthorized edition believed to be mastered from an LP -- FSM's release is the first official CD mastered from the original 1/4" stereo album tapes.

King Kong (1976) is an example of a soundtrack where the album rights are held by a different corporate family than that which distributed the film itself; therefore, we are unable to expand or remix the music beyond the original LP edition. We are offering the CD at a lower price ($16.95) as a result, and have made every effort to ensure the best-possible sound. This is, at last, the first authorized CD of one of John Barry's best-known works. Liner notes are by Barry experts Geoff Leonard, Pete Walker and Stephen Woolston.

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The Platinum Disc Corp people who ruined that first Alice's Adventures release appear to have given the same treatment to Svengali. It will be cheap but extreme caution is advised. We cannot guarantee that this is a legitimate release.

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National Film Theatre, London, Jane Fonda season: 'The Chase': Sat 11th June 1745 NFT1, Wed 15th June 2020 NFT3.

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Visitors to the John Barry page on the IMDb website may have seen this mentioned recently:

Sprung! The Magic Roundabout (2005) (song "Wonderful World") ...
aka Pollux - Le manège enchanté (France)

Composer Mark Thomas (session player on A View To A Kill) has assured us that this is an error: "There is no music by John Barry in Sprung! The Magic Roundabout - ... this is accurate information - some source tracks were used in the film but none by John Barry..."

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The Dutch radiostation Concertzender announces for next Saturday, February Feb. 19 (21:00 Amsterdam Time =CET) in their series Unheard Scores The Horse Whisperer rejected score by John Barry. The English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Barry.

Note: This was an integral broadcasting of the The Beyondness Of Things CD; no commentary whatsoever.

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The BAFTA website has an article on John Barry.

You can find it here: http://www.bafta.org/Film2005/index.html

Then click on link "Articles" and then link "Perfect Score". And then "Read on..."

Update April 2015: link is gone.

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John Barry receives the Fellowship of the British Academy. Virginia McKenna read the citation and Richard Lord Attenborough made the introduction and presented the award. Dedicated page here...

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"Bond composer rails against successors. Modern scores meaningless, says Oscar-winner"

On Saturday, February 12, John Barry receives the "Academy Fellowship" at the Baftas for an outstanding lifetime contribution to cinema.

These awards *are* meant to be secret, I'm sure .. and your Webmaster and site-owner were informed of the forth-coming award last week but were asked not to announce it before the event. Ah well, it seems JB has decided to break the news himself via the media in an interview in The Guardian.

Whereas we admire his candour, it's probably not the best way of making friends and influencing people! In lashing out not only at his fellow composers but also directors and producers, it begs the question "who will hire him now?"

We, of course, congratulate John for this wonderful honour. We wish we could be there to witness the event first hand but will make do with our seat in front of the TV on Saturday evening!

In the Guardian interview, Barry also rails against his successors: "Modern scores (are) meaningless" and comments on whether he "could be tempted to write a score for Casino Royale, " the new James Bond movie to be made for release in 2006.

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Have a look at our new "bootbusters" page reporting bootleggers (illegal sellers of John Barry's work). Please reports boots, with the source. We do *not* look for them ourselves on place such as ebay.

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Here you will find many posters advertising the films for which John Barry composed the score. They include several of the James Bond series, and Oscar-winning films such as Born Free, The Lion in Winter, Out of Africa & Dances with Wolves.