|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 Print this article FMS FEATURE...  November 6, 2012 Booksigning: The Music of James Bond by Jon Burlingame Prominent journalist chronicles 50 years of James Bond film scores and songs  The signing – co-sponsored by The Film Music Society – takes place just one week after the American premiere of Skyfall, the 23rd official 007 film. Burlingame's book (Oxford University Press, $35.00) chronicles the 50-year history of songs and scores for the Bond movies, including many new interviews and discoveries that enabled the author to piece together the complex, often dramatic behind-the-scenes saga of music-making for the world's most famous "secret" agent.  The book includes not only the backstory of each song and score for all 24 films (the 22 "official" films and two "unofficial" films) prior to Skyfall, it also features a reader-friendly analysis of each score. Each chapter brims with little-known, and in some cases previously unknown, anecdotes. Burlingame examines the decades-long controversy over authorship of the Bond Theme; how Shirley Bassey sued the Bond producers, attempting to stop distribution of Thunderball unless her song, which had been dropped at the last minute, was reinstated; how Frank Sinatra almost sang "Moonraker"; how Eric Clapton played guitar for Licence to Kill but saw his work shelved; and how Amy Winehouse very nearly wrote and sang the theme for Quantum of Solace. Interviews with every Bond composer including Monty Norman, John Barry, George Martin, Marvin Hamlisch, Bill Conti, Michael Kamen, Eric Serra and David Arnold offer fresh insights into the Bond style and sound, and how changes in popular music through the years were reflected in the Bond scores. Among Burlingame's other critically acclaimed books are Sound and Vision: 60 Years of Motion Picture Soundtracks (2000, Billboard Books) and TV's Biggest Hits: The Story of Television Themes From "Dragnet" to "Friends" (1996, Schirmer Books). For more information about Burlingame's Nov. 16 booksigning, call the bookstore at (323) 525-2070 or contact the FMS at info@filmmusicsociety.org.  |
Search
Past Features
Feature Archives
|
