"He Strikes Like Thun-N-N-Nder-R-R-R
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“He Strikes Like Thun-n-n-nder-r-r-r-BALL-L-L-L-L-L!” The Place of the James Bond Theme Song Mark R. McDermott Existing almost completely outside the narrative of the two dozen James Bond movies, the theme song played over the opening credits has served as one of the movies’ major promotional tools. In a world before Don LaFontaine-narrated trailers that took up half an hour of a theatrical program, national movie ads piled onto television networks’ “must-see-TV” Thursday nights, and a plague of magazines, cable channels and web sites devoted to covering movies before their release; the song from a Bond movie “of the same name” on heavy radio rotation was an avenue to free publicity. When these songs were effective, they conveyed something of the mood of the movies, or offered a tantalizing glimpse of Bond, his villain of the day, or the dystopian world in which Bond operates. During the greatest popularity of the Roger Moore movies, the theme songs became more about Bond’s sexual prowess. The later themes, though no longer as popular on American radio, continue to illuminate Bond’s world, and have remained one of the many repeated memes of the movies. Movies and Music History Given the apparently easy synergy that has existed between feature films and soundtrack albums during the Vinyl and CD eras, it can be hard to understand that it took so long to happen. An ad hoc arrangement between record companies and movie studios can be found even before the advent of talkies: pop chart maven Joel Whitburn documented the brief popularity of “Poor Pauline” by Arthur Fields (1915), a recording of the accompaniment composed for the 1914 serial The Perils of Pauline. (Whitburn, 1986: 155). The silent romance Ramona (1928) had a title instrumental written by Mabel Wayne; to which L. Wolfe Gilbert added lyrics for its star, Dolores del Río, to sing during promotional appearances. However, the popular vocal recording at the time was by pioneering crooner Gene Austin. (Whitburn, 1986: 39) With the advent of talking pictures, the major studios invested in music publishing companies, as most of the revenue in the music business was from sheet music sales and performance royalties. Warner Brothers had a stake in Brunswick Records, which released songs performed in Al Jolson’s early talkies. But mostly, record companies were the “software” division of phonograph manufactures like Brunswick, Edison, Victor, Decca and later, RCA; just as NBC was a “content provider” for General Electric radios. During the Depression, the record industry seemed unable to compete with free radio music, and nearly died off completely. Warner Brothers sold Brunswick to budget label American Record Corporation in 1931. ARC bought the bankrupt Columbia Records in 1934 — pressing plant, catalog and all — for $70,500 (Gelatt, 1977: 268). Columbia, an original investor in the CBS radio network, was bought back by CBS in 1938. The label became affiliated with Columbia Pictures when both were brought under Sony’s ownership by 1989. The Hollywood studios’ investment in music publishing gave them access to songs and songwriters for musicals and background scores. The studios’ shorts department also had access to or were contractually obligated to use songs from the music division, thus the best- remembered tunes from the 1930’s are those that were heard in cartoons — or “murdered” by Spike Jones. Investing in record companies was not an obvious move for the studios, partly because the recording media were incompatible. Movie music was recorded to optical film, creating separate tracks that could be edited together and synchronized to the picture. Phonograph records had to be recorded complete in a single take onto a wax matrix. Creating records from soundtracks involved copying and re-copying studio playback discs to edit them to a manageable length, resulting in poor sound. Far easier for Bing or Frankie to re-do 2-1/2 minute versions of their popular movie songs at the recording studio. Or for the movie studios to offer the songs to the record labels in hope that their own stars would record them. The first successful release of a motion picture’s original soundtrack on record was in January, 1938. Victor released “Songs from Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” an album of three 78s with songs and dialogue transcribed straight to disc (Osborne, 2006). Through the 1940’s Disney would be the only studio to release songs from the original soundtracks of its features and shorts. One barometer of the use of theme songs as a promotional tool was the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The first drama with a nominated (and winning) song was the Alan Ladd vehicle Captain Carey, U.S.A. (1950), in which Nat “King” Cole introduced his rendition of “Mona Lisa.” The Television Invasion The same year that he hit with “Mona Lisa,” Cole also had a popular record in “Orange Colored Sky,” which co-writer Milton DeLugg had often played as bandleader for NBC’s first late-night program, Broadway Open House. Whitburn and others have cited this as the first song to be popularized through exposure on television (1986: 88). While TV provided plenty of exposure for their musical performers; the movie studios saw free TV as its adversary. Contrarian Walt Disney offered ABC an anthology show, Disneyland, in 1954, in return for an investment in his planned amusement park. Warner Brothers followed in 1955 with Warner Brothers Presents, an anthology dramatizing their older movies. Warners found more success with Westerns like Cheyenne and Maverick (co-starring Roger Moore), and detective series like 77 Sunset Strip and Hawaiian Eye, which included catchy theme songs. Henry Mancini incorporated more jazz into his themes for the Blake Edwards series Peter Gunn and Mr. Lucky, each spawning two best-selling albums; “The Music of Peter Gunn” winning the first Grammy Award for Best Album in 1959. The introduction of high-fidelity and stereo microgroove 33-1/3 LPs and 45s meant more durable, better sounding records could be made cheaply, and rock’n’roll contributed to a boom in record sales that finally made the industry profitable. The adoption of magnetic audio tape and multi-track recording by both movie and record companies made it easier to produce music for either medium. MGM had started its own record label to sell soundtracks in 1946, and went into pop music in the 1950s. ABC-Paramount Records was formed in 1955 during the American Broadcasting Company’s merger with United Paramount Theatres. Warner Brothers went into the record business in 1958 after seeing its matinee star, Tab Hunter, get more publicity for his records on Dot (Edwards, 2004). United Artists Records started in the same year. The 45 rpm single and the long-playing LP were then meant for very different audiences. The more portable 45 was favored by youngsters and was the de facto medium for single-song- based popular music. LPs were more likely to be available in stereo, and as such were favored by grown-ups who wanted to demonstrate their expensive hi-fi setups. The market for LPs was dominated by well-known acts: comedians with frequent TV exposure, the above-mentioned TV tie-ins, and long-form movie soundtracks, especially those performed by large studio orchestras as a modern type of classical music. A perusal of Whitburn’s Top Pop Albums charts compilation (1996) suggests that before the Bond era — outside of Elvis Presley’s movies — High Society and Picnic (both 1956) were the only Top 10 soundtrack albums to also yield Top 10 singles. John Barry’s James Bond soundtracks were the first popular combinations of a mostly orchestral soundtrack with a hit pop vocal song. John Barry Barry’s varied background suited him ideally to bridge movie soundtracks and pop songs. While in the postwar British military, he had learned music arrangement in a regimental band, and maintained a correspondence with Stan Kenton’s arranger Bill Russo (Rubin, 2002: 28). Upon his discharge in 1955, Barry prepared for a career as a jazz bandleader. When American rock’n’roll invaded England in the following years, and many established musicians hoped the fad would just go away, Barry incorporated rock and blues into his jazz repertoire. The John Barry Seven, started with some army buddies, was the first popular band in England to use an electric bass guitar. Barry scored the early British rock film “Beat Girl” (1960), and managed English rock star Adam Faith. Andy White, one of the combo’s drummers, became more famous for replacing Ringo Starr on the Beatles’ first single, “Love Me Do” (1962). When Barry was contacted about working on Dr. No, his band was riding a hit cover of the Ventures’ instrumental “Walk Don’t Run.” The influence of American surf guitar can be easily heard on this and many Barry records. The authorship of the iconic James Bond theme has been a point of contention and litigation. It is generally established that Monty Norman wrote the original riff, the “Dum Di Di Dum Dum:” …based on the song “Good Sign Bad Sign” sung by Indian characters in A House for Mr. Biswas, a musical he composed based on a novel by V.S. Naipaul set in the Indian community in Trinidad (Rubin, 2002: 75). Norman provided the original score for Dr. No, but it’s Barry’s arrangement that’s heard in the first part of the credits sequence. The original opening features the Saltzman & Broccoli “travelling dots” accompanied by electronic tones that suggest the influence of Joe Meek instead of Stan Kenton.