John Barry - at look back at his life

TO MOST of us he was the legendary York-born composer who scored the music for countless James Bond movies and helped write the musical language of modern film.

But to June Lloyd-Jones, John Barry was always the little brother who “did well”.

“He was the baby of the family,” says June, Barry’s older sister, who still lives in York. “I sort of always had to look after him when he was a small boy.”

Not that he really needed much looking after. The young John Barry – real name John Barry Prendergast – was always very independent and strong-willed. “When he made up his mind to do something, woe betide you if you tried to make him change!” June says.

His father was the almost equally legendary – in York, at least – Jack Prendergast; the entrepreneur who ran the Rialto, the iconic York cinema/ concert venue.

Prendergast senior cut a distinctive figure in his trademark trilby. And he was, admits June, a man who expected his children to be able to stand on their own two feet. “We were all brought up like that.”

The family – Mr Prendergast senior; his wife Doris, a classically trained pianist; and three children, eldest brother Pat, June, and Barry – lived in a semi-detached house in Hull Road, until John was 14. They then moved to Fulford to what is now The Pavilion Hotel.

Mr Prendergast, who had come to York in the late 1920s, owned a chain of cinemas in the North of England, including the Clifton Ballroom. But the Rialto on Fishergate was his first, and his flagship.

Barry himself went to the Bar Convent school and then St Peter’s – but from a young age it was clear that music was going to be his life, June says.

He spent all his money on musical books and scores – much of it at Banks Music, in Lendal.

“Every day he went into York, and came back with more things to do with music. It sent my dad mad!” Her brother wasn’t a great scholar. “He liked his music and that was it!” But his musical tastes were very wide – from jazz and skiffle to classical. He learned counterpoint and harmony with Francis Jackson, the master of Music at York Minster. And he was never the long-haired rebel type. “He was always very neat, very precise.”

His love of music continued throughout his national service.

And once he returned to York, it seemed only natural that he should form his own band, the John Barry Seven.

All the original members were local. There was Barry himself, who sang and played trumpet; Keith Kelly, a York shoe salesman who sang a calypso; and Mike Cox, Derek Myers, Ken Golder, Fred Kirk and Ken Richards, all from Scarborough or Leeds.

The group rehearsed at the Clifton Ballroom and then, on March 10, 1957, made their first public appearance on stage at the Rialto.

The venue was in its heyday – and Jack Prendergast, with his connections, was able to attract some of the biggest names of the time: everyone from Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Sarah Vaughan to Lonnie Donegan and Nancy Whiskey.

The John Barry Seven proved an immediate hit. The group was only supposed to play three numbers. “But the audience yelled for more and more and they played nine numbers in all, including Rock Around The Clock,” writes Van Wilson in “Something In The Air”, the second volume of her history of popular music in York. June Lloyd-Jones was in the audience that day. “The reception was unbelievable,” she says. “I can remember the applause now.”

Barry’s career since then has been pretty well-charted: early hits with The John Barry Seven such as Hit And Miss; his work with Adam Faith; being asked to spruce up the James Bond theme tune for Dr No; his subsequent Hollywood success and five Oscars; the four wives; the Long Island home.

So what was it that made his music so special? Christian Vassie, the York councillor and composer, puts his finger on it. I heard him once explain that the composer on a film is one of the cast and that film music is the emotional subtext of every actor on screen,” he says.

“He was 100 per cent right. In a fight scene or a love scene the composer has to be there with the protagonists, expressing to the audience how each moment feels to each of the characters.

“The way in which Barry’s film scores got straight to the heart of the action and gripped audiences around the planet was undoubtedly part of the magic.”

Now the great man is gone, but not forgotten: least of all by June Lloyd-Jones.

“I’m very proud of him,” she says. “He did well.”