The £2.99 sticker on this CD gives a strong hint as to why I bought it. There was a time in the late '80s when John Barry was very hip, thanks to being name-checked by everyone from Jerry Sadowitz to John Zorn, who regularly referred to him as Britain's greatest living composer.
At the start of the '80s, Miss Laing at school (she could tell some embarrassing stories about me) had a lot of his records, which she used to play. Though she complained that everything he did was in C.
This by no means a full career-spanning compilation (unlike my Marianne Faithfull 'Best of', it doesn't claim to be). It covers just his compositions from 1963 and 1964. So only one Bond film: From Russia With Love. But it does include several tracks from Zulu, including the main theme, which is his most dramatic piece, and probably my favourite.
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