By Lee Pfeiffer
The Music of James Bond by Jon Burlingame (Published by
Oxford University Press, $35, 296 pages, illustrated (B&W), ISBN:
978-19-986330-3
Jon Burlingame provides the intriguing and often fascinating
story behind the one heretofore neglected aspect of the James Bond phenomenon:
the soundtracks and the incredibly talented people behind them. This book
manages to be exhaustively researched, yet highly entertaining. Those of us who
pride ourselves on being 007 scholars will be humbled by the wealth of new
insights the author reveals. The book provides a film-by-film look at the
scoring of each movie and refreshingly gives equal time to the 1967 version of Casino Royale, which boasted a fabulous
score, and Never Say Never Again which
decidedly did not. There are also ample
photographs of the composers and singers in the studio as well as rare trade
ads extolling Oscar voters to nominate scores, a generally quixotic task, given
the tone deaf membership of the Academy that ignored the Bond films except for
a rare occasion. With this indispensable
book, Burlingame reaffirms his status as one of the world’s foremost experts on
motion picture soundtracks.
Official press description of the book:
The story of the music that accompanies the cinematic adventures of Ian
Fleming's intrepid Agent 007 is one of surprising real-life drama. In The Music of James Bond,
author Jon Burlingame throws open studio and courtroom doors alike to
reveal the full and extraordinary history of the sounds of James Bond,
spicing the story with a wealth of fascinating and previously
undisclosed tales.
Burlingame devotes a chapter to each Bond
film, providing the backstory for the music (including a reader-friendly
analysis of each score) from the last-minute creation of the now-famous
"James Bond Theme" in Dr. No to John Barry's trend-setting early scores for such films as Goldfinger and Thunderball.
We learn how synthesizers, disco and modern electronica techniques
played a role in subsequent scores, and how composer David Arnold
reinvented the Bond sound for the 1990s and beyond.
The book
brims with behind-the-scenes anecdotes. Burlingame examines the
decades-long controversy over authorship of the Bond theme; how Frank
Sinatra almost sang the title song for Moonraker; and how top
artists like Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, Paul McCartney, Carly Simon,
Duran Duran, Gladys Knight, Tina Turner, and Madonna turned Bond songs
into chart-topping hits. The author shares the untold stories of how
Eric Clapton played guitar for Licence to Kill but saw his work shelved, and how Amy Winehouse very nearly co-wrote and sang the theme for Quantum of Solace.
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