British film composer John Barry has died at the age of 77.

John Barry was born in York in 1933. His upbringing was a portent of things to come: his father ran a cinema chain where as a teenager he worked as a projectionist and his mother was a classical pianist, a path that took him to composition lessons with Dr Francis Jackson, Organist at York Minster.

In 1957 he formed The John Barry Seven. Two years later they played the perky accompaniment for singer Adam Faith’s What Do You Want?, a number one UK chart hit in 1959. So began an illustrious career in music where film became the focus of his attention.

In 1963 Barry was signed up by producers Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli to compose From Russia With Love, the second Bond film, for which he composed his own majestic 007 Theme as well as skillfully arranging the film’s title song by Lionel Bart and The James Bond Theme by Monty Norman, written for Dr No.

The brassy Goldfinger tune was Barry’s first Bond title song, followed by, amongst others, You Only Live Twice and We Have All The Time In The World, sung by Louis Armstong...