Iron Leg

John Barry Seven

Listen – The John Barry Seven – Monkey Feathers – MP3

Greetings all.

The end of the week is upon us, and I have a special treat for you all.
One of the great bones of contention between my lovely wife and I is the movie ‘Zulu!’, the 1964 epic retelling of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift in South Africa. It’s one of the great war/action movies, Michael Caine’s first starring role, and as much as I love it, the wife hates it.
Some years back, my man Mr. Luther passed on a tape with a couple of tracks from the soundtrack, one of which I bring you today.
For some reason, I used to think that the John Barry leading the John Barry Seven was not the hugely successful soundtrack composer who wrote many of the most famous James Bond related themes, as well as the theme to ‘Midnight Cowboy’ (the famous instrumental, not Fred Neil’s ‘Everybody’s Talkin’).
As it turns out they are in fact the same guy. Barry got his start as a jazz arranger, moving on to composing for British teen idol Adam Faith, composing the soundtrack to the cult film ‘Beat Girl’.
He went on to work on the Bond films, and then on to ‘Zulu’.
While the theme to the movie – the a-side of this very 45 – is a cool Shadows-esque tune, ‘Monkey Feathers’ takes the whole reverb thing and runs with it, adding a surf-like feel over a martial beat.
Very cool.
Have a great weekend and I’ll be back on Monday with the Iron Leg Year In Review mix.

Peace

Larry

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for a surprisingly slamming soul 45

PSS Check out Paperback Rider too…