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Composer Barry Gray, formerly John Livesey Eccles, was born July 18, 1908 and passed away April 26, 1984.
Gray is only known for his collaboration with producer Gerry Anderson who created puppets shows (Cf. “Thunderbirds”) during the 1960’s for the English television. Among Gray’s finest, find two series with flesh and blood characters: “U.F.O.” and “Space: 1999”. In 2005, the UK company Network released a restored High Definition DVD set of the complete season 1 of "Space: 1999" with features extras as isolated scores.
SPACE: 1999 SCORES
“Breakaway”
“Matter of Life and Death”
“Black Sun”
“Another Time, Another Place”
“Missing Link”
“Alpha Child”
“The Last Sunset”
“Collision Course”
“Death’s other Dominion”
“The Full Circle”
Fanderson released two magnificent double CDs:
“Space: 1999 - Year One” (Fanderson FANSF7/Polygram, 1998)
“UFO” (Fanderson FANU10/Carlton, 2003)
Silva released a nice CD too:
“Space: 1999 - Year 1” (Silva Screen Records FilmCD 608-Granada Ventures, 2004)
http://www.silvascreen.co.uk
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Silva Screen issued a CD of his score (some of it anyway) for the feature film THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO! several years back. And there was MGM's limited 'internet only' release of THUNDERBIRD 6 about three years ago.
He had a very distinctive sound, did Barry. His puppet show scores were just as good as the ones he did for live action and he treated them on exactly the same terms. It's good that Silva have managed to put out his tv music on CD at long last ('UFO' still coming someway down the line I think....)!
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Posted: |
Jul 18, 2007 - 12:13 PM
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By: |
Jon A. Bell
(Member)
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I love Barry Gray's music, and got to meet him in 1979 at a Space:1999 convention in Columbus, OH. He was a very nice, dapper English gentleman, impeccably dressed in tweed.
And, I'll never forget this story: Gray did an amazing thing when he was judging an amateur film festival at the convention. When a young man showed his Super-8 science fiction film, the "score" to this short film consisted of a driving piano cue. After the film was shown in the auditorium, Gray asked the young man about the music, and the kid replied that he had actually composed it for the film. Whereupon Gray went to the back of the auditorium, sat at a piano in the room, and played back the theme perfectly! The audience erupted in applause; it was quite a moment.
And here's a Gray score I'd *KILL* to have -- his Rachmaninoff-inspired "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun" AKA "Doppelganger." Fantastic music!
-- Jon
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At least he was lucky to have some of his work edited, even being a second/third class composer.
Er - pardon me?! Not quite sure what you mean here?
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I love Barry Gray's work. I've got the Fanderson 2 CD albums of 1999 and UFO, plus the Silva stuff (the one disc 1999 has some track in much better quality and mix). Great stuff.
Sadly, the UK DVDs of the first season don't include a score only track for the first episode "Breakaway." They have a commentary track instead. But since all the music from that episode was released previously, it's no great shakes.
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Interesting that Barry Gray should have scored an episode of Space: 1999 called A Matter of Life and Death, since Polish-British composer Alan Gray (born Jozef Zmigrod) scored Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger's (the Archers) classic fantasy film A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH in 1946.
All creatures Gray and small, I guess.
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I hope Silva will be continuing they're releases of his work? UFO next please??
p.s. Not sure what Tester meant but as a melodist, theme-smith and arranger Barry was 100% FIRST CLASS!
I agree with the second part of your post. As for the first, the Space:1999 Year 2 score is apparently next for release by Silva. But every query I have made in this forum for a rough date for that has sadly met with no reply. However I would hope that both S:1999 and UFO come sooner rather than later 
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Well, most of his scores where for TV and he also doesn't seem to have any remarkable work.
Have you listened to his music? It sounds like you haven't and are basing your opinion on the fact he didn't do much film scoring. But, please correct me if I'm wrong. The fact that he has such a following and that so many of his scores (TV or not - let's not be elitist) are on CD shows that a good number of people think his work was very remarkable.
TV scores are generally underrated. Some could stand up to some of the best film work.
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Well, most of his scores where for TV and he also doesn't seem to have any remarkable work. That doesn't mean he was bad, just one of many. I suppose it has to be people to do that kind of work, too
Wow - rather a dismissive opinion quite frankly, but of course you're entitled to it. The reason he didn't do feature films in general was that he was tied - perhaps too closely in retrospect - to Gerry Anderson and hence tended to work only in tv. A lot of his work for tv was as good as anything you'd hear in a feature film and his Space:1999 scores in particular had a real symphonic quality.
Writing TV music is a real art I should think, and takes just as much skill and craftsmanship (perhaps more in fact, because it's a relentless struggle to keep up with the demands of a weekly schedule).
Takes all sorts to make a world I guess!
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Posted: |
Jul 20, 2007 - 5:25 PM
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By: |
stevieD
(Member)
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And here's a Gray score I'd *KILL* to have -- his Rachmaninoff-inspired "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun" AKA "Doppelganger." Fantastic music!
-- Jon
Unfortunately Doppelganger is currently in-complete, there's about 26mins available, plus an electronic fx reel. there's a few music cues missing from the middle of the film.
I really like the THUNDERBIRD 6 release, but what a pity it was in mono, and the 3/4 multi-track masters could not have been used to create a stereo release.
I did contact Chris Neel ages ago at MGM to let him know the complete score, plus a few outtakes exists for the first Thunderbirds movie, THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO(44mins), that would make for a nice release. The EMI album was a re-recording(studio 2 I think), the original soundtrack was done at CTS.
I hope Silva will do Secret Service as well, loads of that was re-used in UFO.
Steve
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Posted: |
Jul 20, 2007 - 5:43 PM
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By: |
melmaz
(Member)
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Where would one go to hear that music from JTTFSOTS??
Unfortunately Doppelganger is currently in-complete, there's about 26mins available, plus an electronic fx reel. there's a few music cues missing from the middle of the film.
I really like the THUNDERBIRD 6 release, but what a pity it was in mono, and the 3/4 multi-track masters could not have been used to create a stereo release.
I did contact Chris Neel ages ago at MGM to let him know the complete score, plus a few outtakes exists for the first Thunderbirds movie, THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO(44mins), that would make for a nice release. The EMI album was a re-recording(studio 2 I think), the original soundtrack was done at CTS.
I hope Silva will do Secret Service as well, loads of that was re-used in UFO.
Steve
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