Casino Royale - Penguin- acrylic on canvas, 12" x 9"
Live and Let Die - Macca - acrylic on canvas, 12" x 9"
Kick started by my piece yesterday on Ian Fleming and his alter ego James Bond, today's artwork pays homage not only to them but also the ex-Beatle who was asked to write the theme score for Fleming's second Bond novel. Live and Let Die was first published in 1954 but wasn't given the big screen treatment until 1973. Fleming had died ten years earlier so only ever saw Dr. No and From Russia With Love come to life in Technicolor, in 1962 and 1963 respectively; both starring Sean Connery.
Live and Let Die was Roger Moore's debut playing Bond and was every bit as cheesy as you'd expect from a one trick pony better known as The Saint and the English half of The Persuaders. Paul McCartney still drops the song into his live set. Moore, too, is still dining out on it.
There are nearly as many Ian Fleming quotes about drinking as there are James Bond dust jackets.
My favourite is a line from Casino Royale which I often quote myself.
To Bond the best drink of the day was the drink he had in his head before the first drink of the day.
And quite where the (very blurred) line between Fleming and Bond really was is anyone's guess. Fleming was a serial womaniser and was rather partial to the bottle. He died in 1964 after a second heart attack aged just fifty-six, though he looked a good ten years older.
That may have had something to do with his diet: Fleming smoked seventy cigarettes a day and drank an entire bottle of gin. When told by his doctor to give up the gin he simply started drinking bourbon instead.
With today's news of the sad passing of John Barry (fast forward to Brother Mondo's boutique blog), now is probably a good a time as any to finally give Barry his proper dues for writing that theme; the theme his sparring partner Monty Norman took all the credit for. The roots of the James Bond ident can be traced back to The John Barry Seven and the soundtrack he was commissioned to write for the Beat Girl movie in 1960: featuring the evocative sound of Vic Flick (of whom more later in the year) on guitar. Listen to this and tell me what it reminds you of.
Barry and Monty Norman tussled in the High Court many times over paternity of the 007 theme, and its associated riches, but Norman's legal team shaded it on points. And anyway, if Norman had written the bloody thing, why was he never asked to contribute to any more Bond movies? As you can read here (if you've got a couple of hours to spare), the studio probably weren't happy with Norman's final offering and got Barry to do a total rewrite.
Bond aside, John Barry's legacy will be with us for generations to come. Composers and musicians alike love to reference and name-check him; not least The Special Agents who, along with the afore mentioned Vic Flick, supplied the soundtrack to spoof spy movie Wilson Chance in 2005.
