Barry Booth

b. 1937, Rothwell, Yorkshire, England. Brought up in a West Yorkshire mining community, where his father was a coal miner, Booth attended Rothwell Grammar School and sang in a church choir in nearby Leeds. Awarded the Sir Edward Bairstow scholarship, he was able to receive tuition in organ and general musicianship from Dr. Melville Cook. In 1955, having been awarded a County Music Scholarship, he went to London to study piano and composition at the Royal Academy of Music. In the years following graduation in 1958, Booth worked in the theatre, in concert halls, cabaret and rock concerts, on television and radio, and as a studio musician. In the 60s, he toured Europe and the Americas as musical director for Roy Orbison. He was musical director and arranger on the British television series Five O’ Clock Club, a show that featured Alexis Korner with whom Booth co-wrote an award-winning commercial jingle. Other songwriting collaborators included, on 1968’s minor psych-rock classic Diversions!, Michael Palin and Terry Jones of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. On Canadian television, Booth was musical director and arranger for Rolf Harris and later, in the UK, took a similar role on Harris’ BBC television series Rolf On Saturday OK? and BBC radio’s Rolf’s Walkabout. On recording dates, he has served as musical director and also as composer and arranger for Harris, Libby Morris, Orbison, Topol, and comic actor Kenneth Williams. Booth has also been active in the UK and Australia as a record producer for Harris and several projects bringing popular classical music to children. In these same countries and in Canada he has often appeared as guest conductor with symphony orchestras, sometimes performing his own music, and he has also been guest pianist with the BBC Concert Orchestra. A duo recording with horn player Terry Johns received very high praise from the musical press when it was released in 1999. In 2002 Booth was commissioned to write a Jubilee Cantata, ‘Better The World With A Song’, premiered in the presence of members of the Royal Family. In the early 00s, Booth’s group, Les Crocked Messieurs, performed regularly at the Quecumbar venue in Battersea, London. Booth has composed and transcribed numerous musical works, which are downloadable from the Internet.