Mister 8

The Guns of August!

I have, as is my habit, unfortunately, dropped off the face of blogging in the face of a mountain of school work, side work, and work work work work.

While I may be dropping the ball, David Foster is looking to 360-reverse-dunk it with his latest event, The Guns of August, wherein he’s brought together espionage authors JJ Cooper, Jeremy Duns, and Adrian Magson for, well, as David writes:

It is my honour to bring these three authors together for what I will call a ‘virtual symposium’ on spy novels. From my hollowed out volcano, I have grilled them on what makes a good spy novel and have had them analyse the changes, not just to spy stories, but publishing in general. Covering everything from the Cold War to post September 11 terrorism – and from audiobook to eBooks and digital downloads. Adrian, Jeremy and JJ provide unique insights into writing past and present, and share their thoughts on the state of the ‘spy novel’.

Head over to Permission to Kill for more!

Johnny Cash’s Thunderball

Johnny Cash: The Man in Black 1963-69

Here’s a musical curiosity — a James Bond theme written and performed by one of my favorites, Johnny Cash, but not considered by the 007 producers:

e|--0-3-5--0-0-0-|
B|---------1-1-1-|
G|---------2-2-2-|
D|---------2---2-|
A|---------0---0-|
E|---------------|

[See the rest of the tab]

There’s not much information about this one, even in the literature on Johnny Cash. Stephen Miller’s Johnny Cash: The Life of an American Icon says this:

One of the more surprising and incongruous moments in Johnny’s career occurred in 1965 when he recorded “Thunderball” — one of a number of contenders for the title song of that year’s James Bond film. Like ‘Five Minutes to Live’, recorded in an attempt to cash in on a film, the song was not one of Johnny’s most distinguished efforts, sounding more like a theme to a low budget Western than an international thriller. Unsurprisingly his offering wasn’t chosen, the honour going instead to the more conventional Tom Jones.

I believe this one was originally released in 1975 on the catch-all unreleased songs album Johnny & June.

As for the guitar work in the song, I’m not sure who does the playing, but a course in playing like Luther Perkins, of the backing band The Tennessee Two, is required before tackling Cash’s “Thunderball.” This is a James Bond theme with chicken pickin’ alternating bass, and I love it.

Take a listen for yourself, with this neato video in which YouTube user LuiECuomo has put the song together with the opening credits for Thunderball. Watch and wonder what might have been.