220 Goodbye John Barry - Theme From The Persuaders

Chart  entered  : 11  December 1971

Chart peak : 13

Another  survivor  from  the  pre-Beatles  era  scored  his  final  hit. John  beat  Al  Martino's comeback  record, this  being  his  first  hit  for  just  over  eight  years. The  week  this  entered  the charts , Benny  Hill's  Ernie   went  to  number  one  and  by  virtue  of  the  promo  film  being featured  a  couple  of  times  "through  the  windows"  on  Play  School - Biddy  Baxter  presumably judging  that  the  innuendos  would  go  over  the  under-10s'  heads - became  the  first  hit  that  I directly  heard  ( and  enjoyed ; far  more  interesting  than  a  short  film  about  bottles  being  made which  was  the  usual  fare ) . It  would  also  be  around  this  time  that  my  mum  called  me  down  from  bed  to  watch  the  execrable  Neil Reid  performing  on  Opportunity  Knocks  though  I  can't  recall  which  song  he  was  singing.

I  have  a  vague  memory  of  The  Persuaders  being  on  TV , a  glossy  international  crime  series set  in  the  sort  of  locations  that  featured  on  jig-saws. Nowadays  it's  mostly  remembered  as  the bridge  between  Roger  Moore's  stints  as  Simon  Templar  and  James  Bond  and  the  last  thing Tony  Curtis  did  before  becoming  Hollywood's  Peter  Stringfellow  - the  textbook  example  of not  growing  old  gracefully. It  only  lasted  one  series  before  Roger  went  off  to  do  Bond  and   was  a  big  hit  in  Europe  rather  than  America  where  it  bombed  badly.

John's  theme  tune  was  one  of  the  first  to  use  synthesisers.  It's  a  multi-layered  composition  with  the  grinding  bass  synthesiser  sounding  an  ominous  note  that's  not  quite  in  keeping  with  the  generally  light  tone  of  the  series  where  the  banter  between  the  stars  seemed  more  important  than  the  plotlines. On  top  of  that  you  have  brief  melody  lines  played  on  a  synth  that  sounds  rather  like  a  balalaika  to  give  it  that  Greek  feel  in  line  with  the  mainly  Mediterranean  locations  in  the  series. You  certainly  don't  come  away  humming  it  after  one  listen  so  it  probably  needed  the  repeat  exposure  to  become  a  hit.

In  many  ways  this  is  a  somewhat  artificial  "goodbye". John  already  had  three  of  his  five  Oscars  in  the  bag  by  this  point  and  UK  hit  singles  were  small  beer  set  against  being  at  or  near  the  top  of  the  list  of  Hollywood's  soundtrack  maestros. He  was  a  considerable  presence  on  all  the  Bond  theme  hits  down  to  1987  even  though  he  wasn't  a  credited  artist  on  any  of  them.

He  did  release  some  sporadic  singles  under  his  own  name. March 1972's  "This  Way  Mary"  from  the Oscar-nominated  score  to  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  marries  synths  to  medieval  chamber  music  in  a  way  that  anticipates  Rick  Wakeman  though  the  uptempo pop  beat  seems  rather  incongruous . In  September  that  year  he  did  another  theme  to  another  Lew  Grade  series, the  less-celebrated  The  Adventurer  starring Gene  Barry  ( no  relation )  and  Barry  Morse  which  sounds  like  Theme  From  The  Persuaders  Part  2.

He  next  popped  up  on  the  B-side  of  Donna  Summer's  "Deep  Down  Inside"  in  1977 which  he  co-wrote  with  her  and  produced  for  the  film  The  Deep .  What  he  made  of  Donna's  post-coital vocal  isn't  recorded   but  as  the  flip  was  an  instrumental  version  he  had  to  be  credited  as  the  artist. It  too  got  an  Oscar  nomination.

In   September  1980  his  harmonica-heavy   theme  from  Midnight  Cowboy  was  released  as  a  single  after  repeated  plays  on  Noel  Edmunds'  Sunday  morning  show  but  it  didn't  manage  to  follow  Theme  From  M.A.S.H  into  the  charts. Three  years  later , for  some  reason  Cherry  Red  released  "The  Lolly  Theme"  which  went  right  back  to  the  John  Barry  Seven  days  and  was  written  for  a  long  forgotten  British  comedy  film  The  Amorous  Prawn  in  1962. In  1987  A-ha's  "The  Living  Daylights"  was  the  last  Bond  theme  he  worked  on. A-ha  have  been    complimentary  about  his  involvement  but  John  didn't  enjoy  the  experience  very  much. He  was  due  to  work  on  Licence  To  Kill  but  a  ruptured  oesophagus  intervened  and  Michael  Kamen  did  it  instead, after  which  there  was  a  six-year  hiatus  in  the  franchise.

Also  in  1987  his  melancholic  theme  to  the  Christopher  Reeve  film  Somewhere  In  Time   was  released  as  a  single  although  the  film  came  out  in  1980.  perhaps  it  had  just  been  shown  on  TV.

In  1990  he  collected  his  final  Oscar  for  the  score  to  Dances  With  Wolves.  John's  single  "The  John  Dunbar  Theme"  was   actually  a  re-arrangement  of  the  theme  tune  set  to  a  horrible  tinny  drum  sound  and  is  as  boring  and  overblown  as  the  film  itself  so  would  have  been  eminently  suitable. It  was  his  last  new  single  although  a 1963   recording  "Monkey  Feathers"  was  released  in  1999  by  TKO.

John's  last  Oscar  nomination  was  the  score  for  Chaplin  in  1992. He  was  still  active  after that,  completing  three  film  scores  in  1993  for  example,  but  his  best  work  was  behind  him. I  don't  suppose  working  on  two  infamous  turkeys  The  Specialist   and  The  Scarlet  Letter   helped  his  reputation. John  endorsed  David  Arnold's  re-workings  of   the  Bond  themes  in  1997  and  recommended  him  to  Barbara  Broccoli  for  the  series  but  whether  Arnold  needed  his  endorsement  to  get  the  gig  is  questionable.  He  received  an  OBE  in  1999.

In  2001  he  went  to  the  High  Court  as  a  defence  witness  for  The  Sunday  Times  who  had  written  that  he,  not  Monty  Norman,  was  the  true  composer  of  the  James  Bond  theme  and  were  sued  by  Norman. The  Court  found  for  Norman. That  same  year  John  did  his  last  film  score  for  the  Kate  Winslet  WWII  film  Enigma.

He  spent  the  last  decade  of  his  life  in  semi-retirement  though  he  was  credited  as  executive  producer  on  an  album  by  Australian  ensemble  The  Ten  Tenors  in  2006  and  wrote  a  song  with  long  time  collaborator  Don  Black  for  Shirley  Bassey's  2009  album  The  Performance.
He  died  of  a  heart  attack in  January  2011.