That one really hurts. Not only from watching the Opry as a boy, but the rediscovery through Gram, Emmylou and the Byrds in the late '60s after a decade of thinking I was too cool for Charlie and Ira and their kind.
Same sentiments here, Triodelover. A great loss.
On the other hand, as Matt noted on Facebook (and I paraphrase), now Charlie gets to find out if Satan is indeed real.
Very sad news indeed. Strangely enough, I was planning a new episode of my podcast this morning playing 'This is How You Dance' by John Barry from the 1972 film 'Follow Me' when I heard the news. Spooky!
He will forever be remembered for the music on the James Bond movies (and his last soundtrack for "The Living Daylights" is easily his best work on that series along with "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," IMHO) but he was such a versatile guy. His score for Roeg's "Walkabout" is just masterful (the soaring music after the Housman poem is read never fails to bring a tear to my eye). John will be missed but his work will live forever.
It might be a little perverse to prefer one of Barry's smaller films to the Bonds etc (which I agree are truly significant pieces of work. I wonder how much of the power of the early Bonds depends on their evocative scores), but the title sequence of Beat Girl contains a great piece of music that I can never get out of my head! A wonderful, perfect sequence that even brief glimpses of Oliver Reed dancing cannot ruin!
I also prefer one of Barry's lesser known works. His score for the largely forgotten 1972 version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an indelible part of my childhood. It's just such a lush and haunting piece.
Feego wrote:It's just such a lush and haunting piece.
That's a wonderful piece! Barry also did some excellent sci-fi themes too. Even if the films didn't live up to their potential, the scores to The Black Hole and the goofy Starcrash at least gave them much needed epic scope.
EDIT: That's strange, there's less information in that article now than there was just a few minutes ago. So I guess I should add that she starred in the I Am Curious films and appeared in Bergman's Autumn Sonata, though domestically she was most famous for her appearances in a long line of classic comedy shows on stage and TV.
