The Sound Board

Monty Norman, composer of the iconic James Bond theme, died today aged 94.

I don't know why, but this has really made me rather sad. Perhaps it's a reflection of one's own mortality, or perhaps it's just the fact that all the people who made the great stuff that filled our lives, seem to be leaving us.

Cheers, Old boy.

Seems appropriate that my school jazz ensemble is currently working on a medley I arranged of James Bond themes.

I have been under the wrong impression that John Barry wrote it. Well, hell of an arrangement anyway, and farewell Monty!

Lawrence wrote: ↑Jul 12, 2022 4:42 am I have been under the wrong impression that John Barry wrote it. Well, hell of an arrangement anyway, and farewell Monty!

It is a helluva arrangement and quite a tangled tale... Barry definitely came up elements that pre-existed Bond, but Monty had the basic guitar line. Listen to the intro from an Adam Faith song Barry did:



And Monty actually ripped himself off from an Indian-infused - and completely bizarre - Good Sign, Bad Sign:



RIP Mr Norman

I would never credit Norman with the authorship of the “James Bond Theme”. At the most, co-authorship. And even then: Barry contributing 95% and Norman 5%. Or thereabouts.

By the time “Dr. No” went in post-production, Norman didn’t have anything ready that the producers were happy with, so Barry was brought in and ended up developing and transforming a tiny musical seed that is indeed present in Norman’s tune “Good Sign, Bad Sign” into the “James Bond Theme”. Barry never got a credit because that wasn’t contractually possible at the time.

That little seed that has been the cause of the entire dispute is this. Which is indeed Norman’s. But that is also the extent of Norman’s contribution to the theme. Those few notes, that is literally all he can lay claim to. (And in Norman's version: over a single static chord.)

Everything else that makes up the “James Bond Theme” (in its final shape) — the notes, the harmonies and the sounds —, beginning with the choice of instruments, the famous chromatic ostinato in the background, and then, after the “Norman bit”, that amazing major 7th leap, is wholly and unmistakably Barry’s. (That leap could only have come from the mind of Barry, it’s so characteristic of his mid-60’s-early-70’s music.) And the big band section which follows is also entirely and exclusively Barry’s (despite Norman claiming that that section — which, during the trials, was referred to, somewhat strangely, as the “Bebop” section — is derived from his “Dr. No’s Fantasy”, but I listened to that piece and there’s nothing in it, thematically speaking, which even vaguely resembles the Barry music).

Norman rightfully deserves some measure of credit for some parts of the music in “Dr. No” though. He contributed a few pseudo-Jamaican songs — the most memorable one being the quite lovely “Underneath The Mango Tree” (sung by his wife Diane Coupland, lip-synced by Ursula Andress) — and some other material that provides “couleur locale”.

All the music of Norman I’ve heard -- various songs from various productions -- is always very conventional and essentially straightforward diatonic. And often with a rather high 'novelty' factor too. Not necessarily bad, but never remarkable, let alone exceptional. Barry’s music, on the other hand, especially from his amazing early period (which, to me, lasts up until the mid-Seventies) is invariably full of unusual, daring harmonic twist and turns, chromatically slithering melodies and always highly inventive. And personal. It never leaves any doubt as to who its composer is. Apart from Morricone, few composers have had such a iconic signature vocabulary as Barry had. To me, the Bond theme, as we know it, is beyond any doubt the work of Barry. Despite the fact that the crumb which he had to start working with, was one that had fallen of Norman's table.

I apologize for derailing a Monty Norman In Memoriam thread with all this, but it’s not without importance I find.

__

John Barry is perhaps, my favourite film composer.

He was born in York, just up the road from me, and we regard him as a local boy. (In fact, the man who taught him the basics of harmony and counterpoint was the Master of Music at York Minster, Dr Francis Jackson who recently died at the ripe old age of 104 in January this year.)

There was a most interesting court case that involved Monty Norman suing the Sunday Times for libel that legally gave the title of composer to Norman.

I'm with Piet that most of the credit for the final 'product' should definitely be awarded to Mr Barry, but I'd be a little more generous than 5%....

There's an interesting article here:

http://www.jollinger.com/barry/lawsuit.htm

But I too am wandering from the point. John Barry will be forever one of my musical heroes, and his oeuvre of work is something I have always treasured. If you are ever driving in the York area, and are overtaken by a 5 series blaring out a Barry score at full volume, well it's very likely to be me......

Yes, I’d award a lot more than 5% and I’m a huge Barry fan. Ask someone to “sing James Bond” and it’s Monty’s tune they’ll sing (if singing is the right word). That’s the core. It would likely have been nothing without Barry, but… well, that’s the story of a billion great records, right?

Shoulda been a 50/50 split imo regardless of the work and talent, but - inexplicably - nobody asked me.

I’ve always loved Underneath The Mango Tree.

5% when I’m generous. A lot less when I’m not, I’m sorry. Where you guys (and the jury’s that preceded you) go wrong in my opinion — and I say this with all due respect and the utmost cordiality of course —, is that you look at the full theme, the complete piece, in hindsight. You listen to what it became in Barry’s hands. When John Barry first heard Norman’s material however, all he heard where those few notes I linked to above, over that single static minor chord. Everything that followed, and all the musical interest and excitement that the melody and the entire piece eventually got imbued with, still had to be invented. From scratch. By … Barry.

Moreover, nothing in those Norman notes is even vaguely pregnant with the music that Barry eventually gave birth to. Going from Norman to Barry isn’t some obvious development or easy continuation of what’s already there, no, after those opening notes there follows an eruption of brilliant, totally original and completely un-Norman-esque ideas, one after another — melodically, harmonically and orchestrationally, and they’re all Barry’s — that weren’t hinted at in the least in Norman’s material.

Also, if Norman is entitled to 50% (or more) of the credit, there should, it seems to me, at least be one other piece by him that reveals him to be a composer of unusual talent and originality. But there isn’t. Not one. Not even a snippet. A few decent songs, perhaps, but nothing of a striking musical quality. We would have known if there was, wouldn't we? I certainly have never come across anything.
Barry, on the other hand, was merely getting his feet wet with the James Bond Theme. He would continue to astound the world (and the musical community) with inimitable jewels like “Goldfinger”, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”, “Diamonds Are Forever”, You Only Live Twice”, … each of those continuing — with wonderful stylistic and compositional consistency — where the “James Bond Theme” left off, and each of those dripping with musical invention of an extraordinary quality, … And those are just some titles from his early Bond work. Next to that, he also wrote an entire catalog of unforgettable themes and pieces for other movies and series, he created, single-handedly, the sonic template for ‘spy & cold war music’ that is being used to this day, and he completely reinvented himself during the second half of his career when he became a master of those lush, ‘widescreen’ orchestral themes (“Out Of Africa”, “Dances With Wolves”) which were equally highly influential.

The James Bond Theme fits perfectly in Barry’s musical universe. It has no place at all — not even the flimsiest resonances — in Norman’s.

_

Fierce advocacy, Piet. Quite correct of course, now that I have the whole story. Norman wrote a nice little riff. Barry created a sonic universe.

Additionally, in some circles I’ve been in, the terms “writer” and “arranger” have been virtually synonymous. Barry was exceptional as a writer/arranger. Prodigious talent.

In a smaller sense, I try to imagine “Summer Wind” without the instant nostalgia of Riddle’s organ opening, or without his build to to the trombone solo in “I’ve Got You Under my Skin.” In the latter case, I understand the band in the studio stood up and applauded after running down the chart. Well deserved.

Now those were fully written songs, but even so, the imprimatur Riddle stamped onto them was indelible. Plus, in Barry’s case, he even wrote the compelling part of the melody and numerous counter-melodies! Confusing lawsuit results. I think Barry needed a better lawyer.

Yes, Nelson Riddle is indeed a great example of an arranger whose contributions to the material he worked on often entitled him to much more than a mere arranger credit. And — other example — George Martin should have been given a co-writer credit for “I Am The Walrus” too: his work on that track is at least as essential a part of the end result as the material that Lennon arrived in the studio with.

But back to Bond. I would happily award Norman 20, even 30% of the composing credit IF ONLY his “tune” would have included something similar to the inspired (and theme-defining) major 7th leap upwards followed by half-tone descent with which Barry ends the main motif. But it doesn’t. This is what Norman wrote, and this is what it became in Barry’s hands. As I mentioned before, that leap (combined with the added chromatic motion) is pure Barry, the figure belongs to him — and it’s pure Bond as well — and it is one of those melodic shapes that are so typical of Barry’s music of the era, particularly (but not restricted to) the 007 music.
(Of less weight perhaps, but still of significant musical importance nonetheless in this context, are the added 16th notes in Barry’s ‘re-write’ of Norman’s material.)

Also note that the big band section which the main motif explodes into, takes that same major 7th leap plus half-tone descent as its starting point. In other words, the big band section of the piece is a development/continuation of Barry’s material, not Norman’s.
The leap also outlines the ultimate 007-defining musical element: the minor major 7th chord.

I could go on dissecting the music and attributing all of its elements and building-blocks to the two composers, and at the end of it, the Norman column of the ledger would contain only this. Everything else — the fully shaped melodies, the harmonies, the genre-defining orchestration, the structure, … — would be listed under Barry’s name.

From what I understand (after reading various reports of the trials), Norman was (or played) a very nice, jovial person during most of the legal battle, in marked contrast to Barry — even at the best of times a somewhat introverted and aloof personality — who, if he showed up at all, exhibited mostly irritation and disdain. In some of the reports you can read the suggestion that this might have influenced the jury’s verdict. I don’t know if there’s any truth in this. What is true is that Barry never held Norman in high regard. Quite the contrary. As late as 2006, when interviewed by Steven Wright for BBC2, he talked about Norman like this: “Well, Monty can't write, can he? He's a song-writer, of sorts”.

__

Eeek. I have to say, this all feels a little unsavoury. I accept all of Barry’s brilliance, but this doesn’t seem factually correct.

This is from a TV magazine show a few years ago, the pertinent part is at 2.25 (on my iPad, can’t link the exact time)



At least if Norman is to be believed, it isn’t true he simply played them Good Sign, Bad Sign, and said there you go. He adapted it himself to have that distinctive rhythm and tune we know as the essential Bond theme. So Piet, unless he’s lying in this interview, your post and piano example is incorrect.

So if that is indeed the case that he’s being truthful, I’m afraid, it is case closed. That’s what people “sing”. We can talk about wonderful Barryesque 7th leaps all day to the rest of the track - and they are vital - but none of it takes away the core most identifiable tune. That’s why I say 50/50. Barry was clearly more than an arranger, but Norman did the main tune.

(Also, this is messing with my head - Barry Norman was the UK’s premier film critic for decades, and I’ve never made the connection with these two’s surnames before).

Nothing in that video — which I already did watch yesterday — contradicts or disproves anything I said. Except, if you insist, the added 16th notes which Norman here claims were his work. But … he wisely stops singing at the point where it matters (and beyond which he can no longer claim any authorship): just before the upward leap. Leaving the extent of his contribution limited to the opening notes of the theme (the “I was born with this unlucky …”-bit of his song). Just those notes, mind you, not the harmony.

This video also presents a very one-sided version of the affair, if you ask me. Any serious look into the matter would have included the Barry perspective. This is breakfast television journalism at its most annoyingly superficial and lubricated. It’s also a bit painful that the Indian musicians at the end of the video play a lot more of Barry’s music than of Norman’s.

I firmly stick with everything I wrote and exampled before.

__

Well, I have nothing to add.

I think it is always strange how people can argue forever about topics of actual authorship, plagiarism or ghost writing. In most cases, all one can do is form a believe, as it is mostly impossible to really prove anything. Even in court these things tend to end in various ways and nobody seems to be able to predict an outcome.

In this case, I personally think Barry is the real Bond guy. It seems to me, everybody could have come up with the first theme of Beethovens 5th Symphony (ore the first notes of the Bond theme), but only Beethoven (or Barry) could have written the full work! I think the fact that Norman did not have anything to do with any of the sequels is testimony enough to me that all of the people responsible for the films were certain that Barry had shaped the sound of the first one where it counted and not Norman.

I also refuse any notion that it could be morally wrong to say things like these once someone died. Such notions seem irrelevant to me, as either something is right or it is wrong. Death of a person does not change that and with a public figure like a composer is it should not be of any importance.

There will come a day when certain composers who are very successful today might die and finally people will break their silence and all sorts of things could see the light of day. In this case, though, there hardly is anything new and both of the questionable people are dead already. So, nobody can get hurt. There is no way to be absolutely sure about it, there just is a probability and I have no problem with anyone coming to a different conclusion. I just think it is no topic to argue about at all.

The truth is the truth, whether the subject is living or dead.

...and the truth is, he wrote the main tune.

OK, me done.

...and so the discussion continued to the point where someone claimed that the West-African Bantu phrase ‘mbuki mvuki’ is the one and only root of Boogie-Woogie, which triggered a thundering angry voice from the audience "I told ya, it ain't Jazz!" that caused a woman in her late 90s to hold up an apple claiming this to be a handgrenade and everyone should shut the fuck up now, when suddenly the lights went out and... oh boy...

You are dead wrong! It was Beethoven, again!

Read some more about the “Dr. No” music — don’t worry, what follows is no longer about the Norman >< Barry dispute — and apparently, both Norman and Barry were very annoyed with how the music ended up being used in “Dr. No”, be it for completely different reasons.

Norman, it seems, had two grievances: firstly, he didn’t like what Maurice Binder had done with the music during the opening titles, and I must say, he's got a point: the edits and crossfades are very clumsily done and don’t work at all. Amateur hour from start to finish, those titles, in my opinion. Secondly, he was dismayed because so little of his music was used. (The fact was that neither Terence Young, the director, nor Peter Hunt, the sound editor, were all that happy with what Norman had delivered and both of them resolutely drew the Barry card once the latter got involved.)

And it’s precisely this which incensed Barry because he felt exploited and seriously underpayed since he was brought in *only* to help Norman out with the title music, nothing more. And that is also all he got payed for. Finding out that the James Bond Theme ended up being used as underscore as well, many times throughout the movie — Peter Hunt loved the piece and used it wherever he could — didn’t sit well with Barry at all. The fact that, on top of being underpayed, the only screen credit he got on “Dr. No” was as performer of the James Bond Theme music (not even ‘arranger’), can’t have helped either.

Underpayed is no exaggeration: Barry received £250 for his work on “Dr. No” and Vic Flick, the guitarist in Barry’s orchestra who gave the Bond theme its classic twang, was sent home with £7. In an interview, Flick said: “When John Barry and I first got involved with the Bond films, the producers were scraping the barrel for money. They had completed the film, had no money for much of the post production and nobody wanted to release “Dr. No”. The Americans had no interest in a British spy, and the British weren't that interested either. Then they got a small release contract and the film took off. The rest is history. The Bond theme was constructed from a little song that Monty Norman came up with. His idea wasn't what Eon Films wanted so they asked John Barry to arrange this musical show type song into something dynamic. Within about eight days we were in the studio and recording the title. No film to see, just another recording session - even though it was heavily featured. The session finished with everybody smiling and here we are 50 years later still talking about it."

And talking about guitarists and Bond music, here’s a bit of trivia: the guitar player on the “Goldfinger” title song is … Jimmy Page. Page, a session musician at the time, was part of the orchestra Barry had assembled for the Shirley Bassey “Goldfinger” recording session. According to Page, the song was recorded in one take.

__

Piet De Ridder wrote: ↑Jul 14, 2022 5:51 amthe guitar player on the “Goldfinger” title song is … Jimmy Page. Page, a session musician at the time, was part of the orchestra Barry had assembled for the Shirley Bassey “Goldfinger” recording session. According to Page, the song was recorded in one take.

Amazing trivia! I had no idea.

Actually, Piet, in addition to the small amount of money he was paid, Barry was also granted the right to release the theme as a UK single on the Columbia label, which he did alongside the films release. It peaked at No 9 (or 13 depending which billboard chart you use) over three months, so he did end up with rather more than just that. (and quite right too !)

More importantly for us, however, it launched his career as one of the foremost film composers of the era....

Well, yes, true, but I’m not sure if being granted the right to release a recording of the track, even if it proved a lucrative venture (which no one could predict though), comes under the header of ‘payment’. Maybe it does. Maybe not. If it does, then a far bigger payment, I would think, a life changing one even, was the fact that Barry’s work on “Dr. No” landed him the composer job on “From Russia With Love” and, from there, the next 9 instalments of the franchise and, one could argue, his entire career.

_

Yes! That is exactly the point. You have to see it from the point of the working composer: The one-in-a-millon chance of luck where an underpaid job gets you the lottery win should never be used an excuse to underpay all of the other 999.999 composers who where not that lucky. Doing that to me seems like a strange perspective on market economy or what it really should be to serve all man kind (vs just a few). Because working in a job like that would be as foolish as playing the lottery - a pastime many participate in, but nobody would expect to make a living of.

It is a job! Maybe a rather specialised and rare one, but still a job. Would a cook work almost for free in order to have the chance of pleasing that one billionaire visiting his restaurant and getting a very good job though that opportunity? I guess not! And this is exactly as crazy as it seems to me to support working underpaid in the film industry. It is nuts once you understood the principle.

Nails it Fritz!

For anyone who’s interested, two more bits of “Dr. No” trivia:

(1) The location scout on that movie was a young Chris Blackwell. That’s the same Chris Blackwell who, some years later, founded Island Records and introduced reggae to a world audience with artists such as Jimmy Cliff and Bob Marley. Blackwell also recruited the musicians who played the Jamaican music in “Dr. No”.

(2) Perhaps more interesting and certainly closer to the subject of this thread: the famous guitar on The James Bond Theme isn’t an electric guitar. It’s an acoustic Clifford Essex Paragon deLuxe with an added (but non-standard) DeArmond pickup. The signal from the pickup was sent through a Vox 15 amp and the guitar sound was also captured by the many open microphones in the studio which, according to Vic Flick, contributed greatly to the final ‘room-y’ sound of the instrument in the recording.

(I only know of the above because I'm currently reading, as a result of this thread, two Barry-related books: Jon Burlingame's "The Music Of James Bond" and Eddie Fiegel's "John Barry: A Sixties Theme".)