John Barry (1745-1803) was a U.S. naval officer during the American Revolution, distinguished by his gallant achievements. In the 1790s he was the senior officer in the American Navy.
John Barry, born in Ireland and always a staunch Roman Catholic, went to sea at an early age. In 1776 a Philadephia merchant selected him to be the master of a vessel trading with the West Indies. In that year Barry, already a veteran mariner, received a captain's commission in the Continental Navy. A myth persists that Barry was the first captain appointed to the first vessel purchased by Congress, but his initial ship was a hastily outfitted Philadelphia brigantine, the Lexington. He created quite an impression in his opening cruise by capturing a well-armed tender, giving safe convoy to several merchantmen, and eluding a British squadron. Barry's stature grew quickly, and he has been called the most popular officer in the Revolutionary Navy.
Barry's later commands were the Effingham, the Raleigh (which he had to run aground to avoid capture), and the Alliance. In the last years of the war he performed valuable service transporting supplies and dispatches between France and America. Unaware of the state of peace negotiations in Paris, he fought the last naval action of the Revolution more than a month after the conflict had officially ended. Barry remained in the service for two additional years, until the government sold the Alliance. The last captain to resign, he literally saw the Continental Navy come to an end.
Barry's retirement at his plantation home, Strawberry Hill, outside Philadelphia was not to be permanent. Congress, stung by the Barbary pirates' attacks on American shipping in the Mediterranean, resolved to create a new navy in 1794, and President Washington extended Barry a commission as senior captain in the service. After helping to supervise the naval construction program, he was made commander of the United States, the first of the new vessels to put to sea. The tall, white-haired Barry was accorded the courtesy title of commodore, the second American naval officer ever to hold the title, and the first in 20 years. Between 1798 and 1801 Barry spent much of his time directing American naval operations in the West Indies, the period of the so-called Quasi-War with France. In semiretirement in 1802 the 57-year-old Barry was asked by President John Adams to assume command of the Mediterranean squadron, but ailing health compelled him to decline. He died the following year.
Further Reading
There is only one biography of Barry worthy of attention - an excellent study by a distinguished authority on the naval history of the Revolution, William B. Clark, Gallant John Barry, 1745-1803: The Story of a Naval Hero of Two Wars (1938). For early American naval history see Gardner W. Allen, A Naval History of the American Revolution (2 vols., 1913).
Barry, John, 1745-1803, U.S. naval officer in the American Revolution, b. Co. Wexford, Ireland. He went as a youth to Philadelphia, where he was a trader and a shipmaster. In the Revolution he commanded the brig Lexington when she captured (1776) the British tender Edward-first British ship taken by a commissioned American ship. He fulfilled later commands with gallantry: in the Raleigh he fought against superior forces until compelled to beach the vessel to save it and the crew from capture; in the Alliance he took (1781) two British vessels after a hard fight. His renown as a naval hero of the Revolution was second only to that of John Paul Jones.
Bibliography
See biographies by J. Gurn (1933) and W. B. Clark (1938).
Jonathan Barry Prendergast is one of the world's best-known and most popular film score composers. Aside from those who were also well-known classical composers, he is probably the most notable of all British film composers.
His career was "inherited" from both his mother and father. His mother was a pianist with classical training who saw to it that he got a musical education, playing trumpet and piano. His father owned a movie theater. John's exposure to films increased when he left school at 15 to work full-time as a projectionist in his father's cinema. By then he was already on the way to deciding definitely to pursue a career in film music.
He joined a local band as trumpet player and was a bandsman during his military service from 1952 to 1955. Meanwhile, he studied with the organist of York Minster (the historic church of York) and by correspondence with American composer/arranger William Russo and with Joseph Schillinger, the theorist-teacher who had also taught George Gershwin compositional technique and form (after Gershwin had already become a famous composer). At this time Barry began arranging for band.
In 1957, he founded John Barry and the Seven, a pop/rock band (later the John Barry Seven) which remained in existence through 1966. One of his most prominent early jobs was as arranger-musical director for the popular British singer Adam Faith. Barry appeared on radio and television, worked as an A&R man for record companies, and in 1959 scored his first film, the rock musical Beat Girl (1959), staring Adam Faith.
In 1962, he was asked to orchestrate and arrange a non-symphonic, "hip" score by composer and band leader Monty Norman, engaged to compose the soundtrack for Dr. No (1962), the first James Bond film.
It was this project that led to Barry's fame, but not without controversy. The single distinctive cue in the soundtrack is the famous "James Bond Theme." It is rumored that the producers were dissatisfied with Norman's James Bond theme and approached Barry directly to "fix" it. Whether Barry composed a theme anew or worked up Norman's theme is the crux of the issue. But contractually Norman is credited with its authorship and has successfully maintained legal actions in court to defend that credit. Barry proponents, however, respond that it is telling that for 11 several subsequent Bond films (including all the classic Sean Connery movies) the producers hired Barry to do the scoring and never Norman. However, it has also been reported that Barry has succeeded in reclaiming authorship of the theme.
The Bond films made Barry famous, and established a personal non-symphonic sound, often orchestrated by Barry himself, that is among the most distinctive personal sounds in film music. Traits of it include a remarkably well-timed ability to "freeze" the harmonies quietly to build suspense, often while melody instruments continue to move slowly. He is notable for his use of the trumpet, the guitar, and the flute in a low register.
But he has gone on to score dozens of movies, and none of his five Academy Awards are for Bond thrillers. They are for the scores of Born Free (1966), The Lion in Winter (1968), Out of Africa (1985), and Dances with Wolves (1990) and for Best Song for Born Free. (He says he wrote the song with the private idea of composing a satire on a Disney animal movie).
Barry has also written successful West End musicals, most notably Billy starring Michael Crawford (1974). Barry moved to California in 1975 and New York in 1980 and lives in Oyster Bay with his wife, Laurie. ~ Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide
Career Highlights: Walkabout, Goldfinger, From Russia With Love
First Major Screen Credit: Beat Girl (1960)
Biography
John Barry is one of the best-known composers of soundtrack music of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, but his career has carried him through a multitude of music genres and styles. He is best-known in film in connection with his work on the James Bond pictures, but Barry is also the holder of five Academy Awards, none of them for the Bond movies. Born Free (for which he won Oscars for Best Score and Best Song), The Lion in Winter, Out of Africa, and Dances With Wolves are hardly unknown films or scores. Additionally, from 1957 until the early '60s as leader of the John Barry Seven, Barry was one of the best-known figures in popular music and early rock & roll in England. Born in York, England, on November 3, 1933, John Barry was the son of a small movie theater chain owner and a former concert pianist. He showed an avid interest in music as a boy and initially studied piano, although he switched to the trumpet in his teens. After spending much of his boyhood steeped in classical music, he discovered jazz. His idol was Harry James and his favorite music was made by Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, and the Dorsey Brothers. Barry studied piano and composition with the music master of York Minster Cathedral, Dr. Francis Jackson, and had a deep interest in arranging. Growing up around his father's movie theater business, Barry was always cognizant of the power and influence of the cinema, but it was a specific film, A Song to Remember, dealing with the life of Fryderyc Chopin, that first demonstrated to him the power of music in movies and got him interested in the field. He also credits Max Steiner's score for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Anton Karas' music for The Third Man as favorite film scores from his early life.
Barry played with a local jazz band in his mid-teens, and was lucky enough to get himself assigned to a musical unit in the British army when he was called up for service at age 18. During his two years of army service, he tried his hand at arranging, and he later enhanced his skills by taking a correspondence course offered by Bill Russo, one of Stan Kenton's arrangers. Once he was back in civilian life, Barry offered his arrangements to some of the top bandleaders in England, among them Ted Heath, Jack Parnell, and Johnny Dankworth. Dankworth actually used two of them, and at Parnell's suggestion, Barry started his own band. The result was John Barry & the Seven, later known as the John Barry Seven. He moved the group to London in 1957 and approached Jack Good, the producer of British television's top music showcase Six-Five Special, but was turned down for the show. After a few weeks and some successful live engagements, including a gig as the backing band for Tommy Steele, the show's producers changed their minds and the John Barry Seven made it onto the Six-Five Special. The group became immensely popular from their appearances on the program, and Barry was the star, not only playing trumpet but also handling the vocal chores. By this time, the rock & roll boom was going full swing, and his singing frequently required Barry to do his best Elvis- or Carl Perkins-style vocalizing. It was out of their appearances on the program that they were signed to EMI's Parlophone Records label. The group's next big gig was as one of the resident house bands for Good's new program, Oh Boy!, which was a showcase for many of the most dynamic young rock & roll singers coming up in England, including Cliff Richard. It was from there that Barry moved on to become music director for Drumbeat, a dramatic program series starring a young singer/actor named Adam Faith. From 1959 until 1962, he and Faith were an unbeatable combination, both onscreen and in the recording studio, releasing a string of major British hits through the Parlophone label. During this period, Barry also arranged and led the accompaniment for numerous other EMI recording artists, including Desmond Lane, the England Sisters, and Bret Landis. the John Barry Seven also enjoyed hits of their own, including "Hit or Miss" and a version of the Ventures' "Walk Don't Run." They were known for their unusual sound, owing to their bold yet precise playing and their heavy use of electric piano and other relatively uncommon instruments (this in a time when the electric bass was barely tolerated). They were among the star instrumental acts of the day and, surprisingly, cut albums for EMI's Columbia Records, which was already the home of the Shadows, the group's biggest rivals. In 1960, Barry was also invited to write his first film score for the juvenile delinquency drama Beat Girl, starring Adam Faith. The results were an impressive mix of brass, heavy electric guitar (courtesy of the John Barry Seven, guitarist Vic Flick), and orchestra. Barry also later devised an entire album, Stringbeat, in which he juxtaposed the group's sound with that of a string orchestra. He was involved with numerous projects of all kinds during this period. Although it seems hard to believe, in retrospect, at that point, the John Barry Seven were the major rivals to the Shadows, Cliff Richard's backing group, who were known for their instrumental singles. The group started the year with a release called The Cool Mikado, an update of the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, but there were far more important milestones in his career that year. Barry was engaged by the producers of a film called Dr. No to write and arrange a finished score from work that was originally begun by composer Monty Norman. The film itself was a hit and Barry's work sufficiently impressed the producers, Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli, enough to get him a gig writing the full score for the next movie, and for more than two decades worth of subsequent James Bond movies up through 1985's A View to a Kill. Several of these featured songs that Barry co-wrote -- including "Goldfinger," "Thunderball," and "You Only Live Twice" -- became hits of varying proportions and longevity in their own right for artists such as Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, and Nancy Sinatra. The best of his James Bond songs may be the most unusual, such as "We Have All the Time in the World" from On Her Majesty's Secret Service, sung by Louis Armstrong.
If Beat Girl established Barry's British film credentials, Dr. No and the next two movies in the series (From Russia With Love and Goldfinger) made Barry's name international. It was with Born Free, however, that he moved into the front ranks of popular film composers, with the score and Oscar-winning title song. From then on, he was in a position to score some of the biggest and most daring films being made in England or Hollywood, ranging from the hour-long experimental film Dutchman to high-profile dramas like The Lion in Winter (for which he won his third Oscar). In 1962, the same year he composed the music for the first James Bond movie, Barry also left EMI to join the independent Ember Records label. In addition to doing his own recordings, Barry produced and arranged the music for dozens of Ember artists, including Chad & Jeremy, and also produced such best-selling comedy albums as Fool Britannia, Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse's savage satire of the Profumo scandal that nearly toppled the British government. In the midst of his burgeoning film work, Barry found time to make albums of his own on occasion, usually featuring re-recordings of his best movie-related music. In 1999, he also released one album of his classical instrumental style compositions, The Beyondness of Things.
Barry suffered a life-threatening injury at the end of the '80s from which his recovery seemed problematic. He survived with help from a very good physician and one of the first results of this new lease on life was Barry's music for Dances With Wolves, which was one of his most ambitious soundtrack creations ever, filled with complex orchestral parts and sweeping, almost Mahler-like melodic arcs and textures, earning him his fifth Oscar in the process. In 1992, he was nominated for his sixth Oscar for the film Chaplin. ~ All Movie Guide
Barry John (born 6 January 1945 in Cefneithin, Wales) is a former Welsh rugby union player. He is considered by many to be the greatest fly-half in the sport's history, and became known as "the King".[1] John was educated at the Gwendraeth Grammar School in the Gwendraeth Valley, north of Llanelli. His first top-flight rugby was initially for Llanelli RFC, alongside his two talented brothers Alan and Clive and subsequently for Cardiff RFC, where he formed a partnership with Gareth Edwards. Clive John was undoubtedly denied a Welsh cap at wing forward by the extravagant wealth of talent during that era. Barry John played his first international against Australia, on 3 December 1966 when a student at Trinity College, Carmarthen. He replaced David Watkins, who went north to rugby league Bradford Northern for a record fee, after a memorable two years when Wales was split between the dark mercurial Watkins, who had only recently helped steer Wales to a Triple Crown, and the silky magical John. The country was so divided that the two camps in the Welsh crowd would chant at each other: "Watkins!" - "Barry John!" John formed a devastating combination in the Welsh team with the scrum-halfGareth Edwards. John was selected for the British Lions in South Africa in 1968. In the first test in South Africa he broke his collarbone and was forced to return home.
He was again selected for the Lions; this time for their 1971 tour to New Zealand. In the first Test, under the orders of the Lions coach Carwyn James (also from Cefneithin), John terrorised New Zealand's fullbackFergie McCormick with ruthless tactical kicking. The Lions won the test, and McCormick never played for the All Blacks again. Despite losing the second test, the Lions won the third test and drew the fourth to win the series. It was on this tour that John received the nickname "the King". He scored 30 of the Lions 48 points over the four Tests, and cemented his reputation as one of the game's greatest players.
One year later, at the age of only 27, with only 25 Welsh caps and 5 British Lions caps, Barry John retired from the game. His last match was against France in March 1972. John cited media attention as the key factor. The story goes that he finally had enough of the attention his ability was drawing when a young girl curtsied to him outside the opening of a local bank, obviously in reference to his nickname. Once Barry John had retired from rugby, he disappeared totally from the public eye.
As the authors of the official history of the Welsh Rugby Union, Dai Smith and Gareth Williams, wrote of him: "The clue to an understanding of his achieved style lies in what he could make others do to themselves. The kicking, whether spinning trajectories that rolled away or precise chips or scudding grubbers, was a long-range control, but his running, deft, poised, a fragile illusion that one wrong instant could crack, yet rarely did, was the art of the fly-half at its most testing. He was the dragonfly on the anvil of destruction. John ran in another dimension of time and space. His opponents ran into the glass walls which covered his escape routes from their bewildered clutches. He left mouths, and back rows, agape."
Rodney Webb, the man who developed the modern rugby ball, also believes that John was the greatest kicker of all time.[2] As he points out, these days the balls are coated in a laminate used on the hulls of giant oil tankers, have dimpled surfaces, unobtrusive lacing and multi panels. In the Seventies the balls soaked up water, swerved all over the place and were placed on muddy and sometimes uneven pitches (unlike many of today's professional rugby pitches) without the use of tees.
