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FMS FEATURE...

November 6, 2012
Booksigning: The Music of James Bond by Jon Burlingame
Prominent journalist chronicles 50 years of James Bond film scores and songs

Jon Burlingame
LOS ANGELES—Author Jon Burlingame, the nation's leading writer on the subject of film music, will discuss and sign his acclaimed new book, The Music of James Bond on Friday, Nov. 16 at 7:00 PM, Barnes & Noble Booksellers at The Grove at Farmers Market, 189 Grove Drive, Suite K30 in Los Angeles.

The signing – co-sponsored by The Film Music Society – takes place just one week after the American premiere of Skyfall, the 23rd official 007 film.

Burlingame's book (Oxford University Press, $35.00) chronicles the 50-year history of songs and scores for the Bond movies, including many new interviews and discoveries that enabled the author to piece together the complex, often dramatic behind-the-scenes saga of music-making for the world's most famous "secret" agent.

The Music of James Bond
Early reviews are unanimously positive: "Enlightening, informative, and great fun to read" (Leonard Maltin); "an amazing behind-the-scenes dossier, revealing the personalities, the betrayals, the egos, the lawsuits and the untold stories" (John Cork, co-author of James Bond: The Legacy); "a magnificent work... meticulously researched history of the Bond music" (Steven Jay Rubin, author of The Complete James Bond Movie Encyclopedia); "exhaustively researched yet highly entertaining... a wealth of new insights" (Lee Pfeiffer, co-author, The Incredible World of 007).

The book includes not only the backstory of each song and score for all 24 films (the 22 "official" films and two "unofficial" films) prior to Skyfall, it also features a reader-friendly analysis of each score.

Each chapter brims with little-known, and in some cases previously unknown, anecdotes. Burlingame examines the decades-long controversy over authorship of the Bond Theme; how Shirley Bassey sued the Bond producers, attempting to stop distribution of Thunderball unless her song, which had been dropped at the last minute, was reinstated; how Frank Sinatra almost sang "Moonraker"; how Eric Clapton played guitar for Licence to Kill but saw his work shelved; and how Amy Winehouse very nearly wrote and sang the theme for Quantum of Solace.

Interviews with every Bond composer including Monty Norman, John Barry, George Martin, Marvin Hamlisch, Bill Conti, Michael Kamen, Eric Serra and David Arnold offer fresh insights into the Bond style and sound, and how changes in popular music through the years were reflected in the Bond scores.

Among Burlingame's other critically acclaimed books are Sound and Vision: 60 Years of Motion Picture Soundtracks (2000, Billboard Books) and TV's Biggest Hits: The Story of Television Themes From "Dragnet" to "Friends" (1996, Schirmer Books).

For more information about Burlingame's Nov. 16 booksigning, call the bookstore at (323) 525-2070 or contact the FMS at info@filmmusicsociety.org.

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