Don Black

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Don Black with his Oscar for Born Free  (1966)

Don Black , OBE , actually Donald Blackstone , (born June 21, 1938 in London ) is a British songwriter of numerous musicals , films and other songs. He is also a writer , manager and composer .

Life

Don Black is of Jewish descent, his mother's name was Betsy (née Kersh) and his father Morris Blackstone. Black has four siblings. He started his career as a comedian and manager of Singer ( Matt Monro ). He lives in London . His wife Shirley died in March 2018 after nearly 60 years of marriage.

plant

Black wrote the lyrics to several James Bond films ( Fireball , Diamond Fever , The Man with the Golden Gun , Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough ). In collaboration with the composer John Barry, he created the theme song for the film Free Born - Queen of the Wild (1965) and won the Oscar for best song for it. With Barry he wrote the musicals Billy (1974) and Brighton Rock (2004). In 2006 the two released the album Here's to the Heroes by the 10 tenors .

Black also worked with Jule Styne , Henry Mancini , Quincy Jones , Elmer Bernstein , Michel Legrand , Marvin Hamlisch , Charles Aznavour, and Matt Monro . For Michael Jackson he wrote the hit Ben , for Lulu To Sir, with Love .

He was involved in several musicals by Andrew Lloyd Webber , such as Tell Me on a Sunday ( song cycle , 1979), Aspects of Love (1989) and Sunset Boulevard (1993). In 2002 he wrote Bombay Dreams with the Indian composer AR Rahman .

In 1986 the keyboardist Geoffrey Downes (formerly with the Buggles , Yes and Asia ) planned to turn the theme of his Buggles hit Video Killed the Radio Star into a musical, and hired Don Black as a lyricist. Despite the collaboration with the Andrew Lloyd Webber copywriter, nothing came of the joint project. However, there are demos that were partially sung by the GTR singer Robert Berry at the time.

literature

  • James Inverne: Wrestling with Elephants. The Authorized Biography of Don Black. Foreword by John Barry. Sanctuary, London 2003, ISBN 1-86074-468-0 , (English, Inverne presents Black's life and work, often not very neutral, he occasionally makes factual errors or inaccuracies)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Black, Don
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Blackstone, Donald (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British lyricist, writer and composer
DATE OF BIRTH June 21, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH London , England , UK