Angelo Daniel Badalamenti (March 22, 1937 – December 11, 2022) was an American composer and conductor best known for his work in composing for films. He mainly is known for his collaborations with director David Lynch, notably Blue Velvet, the Twin Peaks saga (1990–1992, 2017), The Straight Story, and Mulholland Drive. Badalamenti received the 1990 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for his "Twin Peaks Theme". He composed scores for many other films including The City of Lost Children, A Very Long Engagement and Holy Smoke!.
He also recorded songs
with a wide array of singers including Nina Simone, Shirley Bassey, Dusty
Springfield, Julee Cruise, Marianne Faithfull, David Bowie, Tim Booth, Siouxsie
Sioux and Dolores O'Riordan.
Badalamenti received a
"Lifetime Achievement Award" from the World Soundtrack Awards's
Academy in 2008, and the "Henry Mancini Award" from the American
Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in 2011.
Film and Television
Scoring
Badalamenti scored
films such as Gordon's War, and Law and Disorder, but
his break came when he was brought in to be Isabella Rossellini's singing
coach for the song "Blue Velvet" in David Lynch's 1986
film Blue Velvet. Badalamenti
and Lynch collaborated to write "Mysteries of Love" using lyrics
Lynch wrote and Badalamenti's music. Julee Cruise, who went on to work
with Lynch and Badalamenti on other projects, performed the vocals for that
track. Badalamenti composed the score for the film and served as music
supervisor. Lynch's request to the composer was for the score to be
"like Shostakovich, be very Russian, but make it the most beautiful
thing but make it dark and a little bit scary." Badalamenti appears in Blue Velvet as
the piano player in the club where Rossellini's character performs. This film
was the first of what would become a career-long collaborative relationship
spanning television and film.
After scoring a variety
of mainstream films, including A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream
Warriors and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Badalamenti once
again collaborated with Lynch and scored Lynch's cult television show, Twin
Peaks, featuring the vocals of Julee Cruise on the leading song "Falling". Twin Peaks would become the score
Badalament is perhaps best known for, one that helped define the overall style
and mood of the show. The score features
different themes patterned after specific characters in the show—"Audrey's
Dance", for example, is an "abstract jazzy" theme that plays
when Audrey Horne (played by Sherilyn Fenn) is on-screen. Many of the songs from the series were
released on Cruise's album Floating into the Night. From the soundtrack of the television series,
he was awarded the Grammy Award for Best
Pop Instrumental Performance for the "Twin Peaks Theme". It also earned a gold plaque from the RIAA.
Other Lynch projects he
worked on include the movies Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk
with Me, Lost Highway, The Straight Story, Mulholland
Drive (where he has a small role as a gangster with a finicky taste for espresso),
and Rabbits as well as the television shows On the Air and Hotel Room. Other projects with other directors he
worked in include the television film Witch Hunt, and the films Naked
in New York, The City of Lost Children, A Very Long Engagement,
The Wicker Man, Dark Water and Secretary. He has also worked on the soundtrack for the
video game Fahrenheit (known as Indigo Prophecy in
North America). He was composer for director Paul Schrader on such films as Auto
Focus, The Comfort of Strangers and Dominion: Prequel to the
Exorcist.
In 1995, he asked Marianne
Faithfull to write lyrics for a song, for the soundtrack of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's
The City of Lost Children; the result was "Who Will Take My Dreams
Away".
In 1998, Badalamenti
recorded "A Foggy Day (in London Town)" with David Bowie for the Red
Hot Organization’s compilation album Red Hot + Rhapsody, a tribute to George
Gershwin which raised money for various charities devoted to increasing AIDS
awareness and fighting the disease. Badalamenti
had sent a demo of the song with him on vocals to the record company and Bowie
was the first singer to contact him back.
In 1999, he worked with director Jane Campion, for the film Holy
Smoke!, and scored the music, after a few days of working with Campion.
In 2005, he composed
the themes for the movie Napola (Before the Fall), which
were then adapted for the score by Normand Corbeil. In 2008, he composed and directed the
soundtrack of The Edge of Love: Siouxsie Sioux sang "Careless
Love" and Patrick Wolf and Beth Rowley recorded vocals for several other
tracks. Badalamenti received the Lifetime
Achievement Award at the World Soundtrack Awards on October 18, 2008
in Ghent, Belgium. That night,he
performed a concert at the piano with the Brussels Philharmonic orchestra directed
by Dirk Brossé, and Siouxsie Sioux and Beth Rowley on vocals. The concert spanning his whole career with a
selection of tracks,was broadcast on Belgian television. On July 23, 2011, the American Society of
Composers, Authors and Publishers presented Badalamenti with the Henry Mancini
Award for his accomplishments in film and television music.
The 2017 revival of the Twin
Peaks television series marked the continuation of Badalamenti's work
with David Lynch. Its score features new compositions by Badalamenti, as well
as material from the original score.
Collaborations
Since his beginnings,
he collaborated with other acts. In 1964, he contributed to Beatlemania by
arranging, conducting, and co-writing a Christmas novelty single entitled
“Santa Bring Me Ringo", which was performed by Christine Hunter. In 1966, Badalamenti co-wrote a song
("Visa to the Stars") on Perrey and Kingsley's album The In Sound
from Way Out! In 1967, using the
name "Andy Badale", he co-wrote a song ("Pioneers of the
Stars") for Perrey and Kingsley's next album, Kaleidoscopic Vibrations:
Electronic Pop Music From Way Out. The
same year, he co-wrote (with Norm Simon) "I Want to Love You for What You
Are", a No. 54 pop hit for Ronnie Dove.
He also arranged, produced, and co-wrote some songs on Perrey's two solo
albums for Vanguard Records using the "Andy Badale" pseudonym.
Among his credits,
Badalamenti wrote songs for singers such as Nina
Simone and Shirley Bassey. In 1967, Badalamenti co-wrote the track "I
Hold No Grudge" with Simone, for her album High Priestess of Soul. In 1968, he wrote "I've Been Loved"
with Sammy
Cahn for Bassey, for her album This Is My Life.
In 1987, he lent his
services to British synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys, arranging the orchestration on
"It Couldn't Happen Here". He
also arranged the strings on two tracks on their Behaviour album in 1990.
He was the arranger on
songs of artists such as Dusty Springfield and Paul McCartney. He arranged Springfield's single "Nothing
Has Been Proved" in 1989 which was written by the Pet Shop Boys. He worked for McCartney at Abbey Road in late
1992 for an unreleased song "Is it raining in London?" which was
written by McCartney with Hamish Stuart.
He conceived entire
albums with singers such as Julee Cruise, Marianne Faithfull and Tim Booth of
the band James. In 1993, he directed
with Lynch an album for Cruise, The Voice of Love, which included
several tracks from Twin Peaks.
Also in 1993, Badalamenti collaborated with thrash metal band Anthrax on
the Twin Peaks-inspired track "Black Lodge" from the Sound
of White Noise album.
In 1995, he composed,
orchestrated and produced Faithfull's album, A Secret Life. In 1996, he teamed up with Tim Booth, as Booth
and the Bad Angel: they released the eponymous album on the Mercury label. In 2000, he worked with Orbital on the
"Beached" single for the movie The Beach. In 2004, he composed the Evilenko soundtrack
working with Dolores O'Riordan, who sang the main theme and with whom he
continued collaborating.
Other Projects
Badalamenti composed
the opening theme for the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.
Live Performances
Badalamenti performed
at a concert entitled "The Music of David Lynch" in 2015, in
recognition of the tenth anniversary of the David Lynch Foundation. The performance was held at Ace Hotel Los
Angeles and included Julee Cruise and other artists known for collaborating
with Lynch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelo_Badalamenti
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