James Bond Theme is played during Oregon-Arizona college football game

ABC (well technically ESPN via ABC) is showing the Oregon-Arizona college football game on Nov. 21. Around 8:30 p.m. ET, one of the bands of the teams involved played the James Bond Theme. It remains to be seen whether one of the best-known movie themes shows up again during the broadcast.

John Barry to receive Max Steiner award

John Barry, the 11-time 007 composer and five-time Academy Award winner, is about to pick up another piece of hardware: the Max Steiner Life Achievement award.
Barry was scheduled to get the award at the Hollywood In Vienna program on Oct. 14. However, because of an illness by his wife, he can’t make it. Barry will [...]

OHMSS voted No. 1 007 soundtrack

A recent poll at LastBroadcast puts John Barry’s soundtrack for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service as the best in the 007 series.
An excerpt:
Comfortably winning with around a third of all votes, composer John Barry’s 1969 score for George Lazenby’s debut/swansong features some of the series’ most recognisable music, despite the film itself often being overlooked [...]

Vic Flick update: James Bond Now

Wes Britton advises us of the following about Vic Flick, the guitarist on the original rendition of The James Bond Theme:
James Bond Now, a wonderful collection of Vic’s reworkings of classic Bond tunes along with original compositions, can be ordered from Vic himself for $15.00 including shipping and handling by E-mailing Vic direct at: Flight007@aol.com.
You [...]

The story of 007’s favorite guitarist

It’s hard to talk about James Bond movies without The James Bond Theme and it’s difficult to talk about that tune without mentioning guitarist Vic Flick.
It was Flick’s fingers on the electric guitar that was a major part of the original version of the theme. Monty Norman, the composer, has made a lot of money. [...]

The murky origins of the James Bond Theme

The James Bond Theme, as anyone who visits here knows, is one of the most famous pieces of movie music. But trying to peel back the origins has proven a bit tricky. A UK court has decided that Monty Norman is the author. But when you see the UK documentary we’ve linked to (via YouTube). [...]

More about James Bond songs from UK documentary

The original spoofy Casino Royale in 1967 was, by all accounts, a big mess. It was instigated by Cubby Broccoli’s former boss, Charles K. Feldman, who snared the rights. But Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, after already having to make Kevin McClory a partner in Thunderball, weren’t in the mood to share a second time with [...]

More from the UK documentary on James Bond songs

A few days ago, we linked to some YouTube versions of a UK documentary on James Bond title songs. That posting drew a bit of traffic, so we thought we should do some more. First up, how John Barry and Tim Rice faced a daunting task to do a song for a movie titled Octopussy. [...]

Harry Saltzman’s tin ear for music

A couple of years ago, a documentary was produced in the U.K. about the James Bond title songs. There was a lot of entertaining material, including interesting detail on rejected title songs (such as Alice Cooper’s version of a song for The Man With the Golden Gun).
But the most startling disclosures concerned how Bond co-producer [...]

Rejected James Bond theme songs

Over on writer Lee Goldberg’s weblog, he has posted various proposed James Bond title songs — such as Johnny Cash’s Thunderball song or Alice Cooper’s effort for The Man With the Golden Gun. To take a look, click RIGHT HERE.