OST: "ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE"

OST/JOHN BARRY: "ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE"
Original Released as LP United Artists UAS29020 (UK), January 1970
John Barry knew from the age of nine that he wanted to be a composer. Helping his father run a cinema had exposed young Barry to countless movie soundtracks, though he was initially drawn to classical music. However, his discovery of swing jazz broadened his horizons, and he took up the trumpet. This combined knowledge of brass instrumentation and the syncopation of jazz became crucial for his work as a composer.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (the first and last 007 movie with actor George Lazenby, in which the secret agent marries his Bond-Girl – Diana Rigg – in Portugal, in spite of she’s being killed soon after), like every John Barry Bond soundtrack, repays close attention to detail. Trumpets blare, timpani boom, snare drums crack and rattle, strings soar and counterpoint the brass – usually on angular intervals – and such exotic instruments as the cimbalom evoke far-flung corners of the world. Just as Bond had all the latest gadgets, so did Barry: he gave the electric guitar and electric bass prominent roles in his orchestra, and the tittle track is a lovely slice of 1960s pop with pioneering use of synthesizer.

The John Barry/Hal David love theme, “We Have All The Time in the World”, was the final song recorded by legendary performer Louis Armstrong, whose soulful vocals later propelled the single to the top of the British pop charts (see back cover for track list)