From Russia with Love
Original Expanded Score 50th Anniversary DeLuxe Edition

James Bond exploded onto the big screen in 1962 s Dr. No. The film initiated a film series that has proven uniquely successful and is still going strong more than fifty years since it began.

The success of the first film and Sean Connery s iconic portrayal of master spy 007 quickly generated a sequel that would set in motion an ongoing series of films that has reached nearly two dozen official James Bond movies to date.

But at the time of From Russia With Love, despite a handful of pop-based film scores, Barry was still untested as a film composer for a movie of Russia s stature and importance. Bond s producers were impressed with what Barry had done with The James Bond Theme, particularly in the way it became a chart hit, and realized a real theme song might have even more success. Barry had several hit instrumentals in England, but he hadn t written a hit song.

Wary in this regard, the producers sought a name songwriter to write the song for Russia, and settled on Lionel Bart, who d just a year before had a huge hit with his musical Oliver! Because of Barry s inexperience in film music, Bart was also considered to write the entire score, but director Terence Young pointed out that Bart was no more experienced than Barry was in scoring films, and that Barry should be given the chance.Thus,

Barry became part of the James Bond team, and was flown out to Istanbul to watch filming and soak up the atmosphere, as Monty Norman had in Jamaica for Dr. No.
This dramatic underscore is where From Russia With Love has it all over Dr. No.While The James Bond Theme was arranged from music written by Monty Norman and is reinforced in Russia as Bond s signature music, Barry also took the opportunity to write his own identifiable Bond theme here with an orchestral theme he called 007.

As with Norman s piece, Barry s 007 would become identified with Bond s action moments, and it would find its way into four succeeding Bond movies. Introduced during the attack on the gypsy camp and reprised during Bond s infiltration into the Russian embassy to steal the Lecter device, Barry intended 007 to offer a lighter, adventuresome sound in contrast with the strident guitar and big-band sound of The James Bond Theme.

For this 50th Anniversary release of the From Russia With Love score, Harkit Records accompanies the 18 tracks of the original 1965 LP release with some alternate versions culled from arrangements Barry made for various record labels he was contracted to during his career.

Also included is the version of the Main Title used on the film soundtrack, including Alan Haven s jazzy improvised organ bits that so nicely flavored the melody, but which were not used in the arrangement of the title theme used on the soundtrack album. Copious notes by Tom Desirett accompany this exciting release!