Career
Barry spent his national service in the British Army playing the trumpet, working from a correspondence course with jazz composer Bill Russo. After national service he worked as an arranger for the orchestras of Jack Parnell and Ted Heath, forming his own band, the John Barry Seven, in 1957. The John Barry Seven recorded hit records on EMI's Columbia label including "Hit and Miss", the theme tune he composed for the BBC's Juke Box Jury programme; a cover of the Johnny Smith song "Walk Don't Run"; and a cover of the theme for the United Artists western The Magnificent Seven.
By 1959 Barry was gaining commissions to arrange music for other acts, starting with a young trio on Decca, coincidentally called the Three Barry Sisters, though unrelated both to Barry and American duo The Barry Sisters. The career breakthrough for Barry was the BBC television series Drumbeat, when he appeared with the John Barry Seven. He was employed by EMI from 1959 until 1962 arranging orchestral accompaniments for the company's singers, including Adam Faith. He also composed songs (along with Les Vandyke) and scores for films in which Faith was featured. When Faith made his first film, Beat Girl (1960), Barry composed, arranged and conducted the film score, his first. His music was later released as the UK's first soundtrack album.
Barry also composed the music for another Faith film, Never Let Go (also 1960), orchestrated the score for Mix Me a Person (1962), and composed, arranged and conducted the score for The Amorous Prawn (also 1962). In 1962, Barry transferred to Ember Records, where he produced and arranged albums.
These achievements caught the attention of the producers of a new film called Dr. No (1962) who were dissatisfied with a theme for James Bond given to them by Monty Norman. Barry was hired and his arrangement of Norman's composition created the "James Bond Theme". When the producers of the Bond series sought to hire Lionel Bart to score the next James Bond film From Russia with Love (1963), they learned that Bart could not read or write music. Though Bart wrote a title song for the film, the producers remembered Barry's arrangement of the James Bond Theme and his composing and arranging for several films with Adam Faith. Bart also recommended Barry to producer Stanley Baker for his 1964 film Zulu. That same year Bart and Barry collaborated on the film Man in the Middle; and then, in 1965, Barry worked with director Bryan Forbes in scoring the World War II prison-camp drama King Rat.
This was the turning point for Barry, and he subsequently won five Academy Awards and four Grammy Awards, with scores for, among others, Born Free (1966), The Lion in Winter (1968), Midnight Cowboy (1969) for which he did not receive an on-screen credit, and Somewhere in Time (1980).
Barry was often cited as having had a distinct style which concentrated on lush strings and extensive use of brass. He was one of the first to employ synthesizers in a film score (On Her Majesty's Secret Service, also 1969), and to make wide use of pop artists and songs in Midnight Cowboy. Because Barry provided not just the main title theme but the complete soundtrack score, his music often enhanced the critical reception of a film, notably in Midnight Cowboy, The Tamarind Seed, the first remake of King Kong (1976), Out of Africa (1985), and Dances with Wolves (1990). Barry would often watch films and would note down with pen and paper what worked or what did not.
Barry composed the theme for the TV series The Persuaders! (1971) in which Tony Curtis and Roger Moore were paired as rich playboys solving crimes. The instrumental recording features the cimbalom (which Barry also used for The Ipcress File (1965) and other themes) and Moog synthesizers. The theme was a hit single in many European countries (including France, Germany, and the Benelux states), contributing to the cult status of the series in Europe, and the record featured Barry's "The Girl with the Sun in Her Hair" on the B side, an instrumental piece featured in a long running TV advert for Sunsilk shampoo. Barry also wrote the scores to a number of musicals, including the 1965 Passion Flower Hotel (lyrics by Trevor Peacock), the successful 1974 West End show Billy (lyrics by Don Black), and two intended Broadway musicals that never opened on Broadway, Lolita, My Love (1971), with Alan Jay Lerner as lyricist, and The Little Prince and the Aviator (1981), again with lyricist Don Black. Barry also composed the soundtrack for the Bruce Lee film Game of Death (1978).
In 2001, the University of York conferred an honorary degree on Barry, and in 2002 he was named an Honorary Freeman of the City of York.
During 2006, Barry was the executive producer on an album entitled Here's to the Heroes by the Australian ensemble The Ten Tenors. The album features a number of songs Barry wrote in collaboration with his lyricist friend, Don Black. Barry and Black also composed one of the songs on Shirley Bassey's 2009 album, The Performance. The song, entitled "Our Time Is Now", is the first written by the duo for Bassey since "Diamonds Are Forever".
