James Newton Howard has composed the music for more than 100 films. He's scored thrillers, Disney animation and big fantasy series. His latest is the western News of the World.
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James Newton Howard has composed the music for more than 100 films, a remarkable feat considering he didn't start doing it until 1985. He has scored thrillers, Disney animation and big fantasy series. His latest is a Western starring Tom Hanks. It's called "News Of The World." Tim Greiving has this profile on a composer who can seemingly do it all.
TIM GREIVING, BYLINE: Before he was an A-list film composer, James Newton Howard was a rock 'n' roller.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING))
ELTON JOHN: We're going to switch albums to "Blue Moves," which was one of my favorite albums. And it's arranged by James Newton Howard.
GREIVING: That's Elton John shouting out his conductor on stage in Australia in 1987. Howard was a member of John's band - composing, playing keyboards and writing orchestra arrangements for the superstar from 1975 to 1982.
(SOUNDBITE OF ELTON JOHN'S "TONIGHT")
GREIVING: The son of a milkman, Howard, grew up south of Los Angeles, where everyone called him Jimmy.
JAMES NEWTON HOWARD: Until I decided to do an album on my own, which I thought, hmm, James Newton Howard sounds more important or more theatrical and more dramatic.
GREIVING: As a kid, Howard was on track to become a classical pianist. He even got a full scholarship to the University of Southern California. But the lure of rock 'n' roll was too strong. And Howard produced, arranged and played for the likes of Toto, Diana Ross and Earth, Wind & Fire. Then in 1985, he was asked to score a film.
HOWARD: Music is music. A songwriter is a storyteller, no different from a visual storyteller. So if you're a good storyteller, possibly as a musician, then that would seem to be able to translate into work as a film composer.
GREIVING: Howard got his feet wet scoring low-rent comedies and small dramas. Pretty soon, he scored the blockbuster rom-com "Pretty Woman," then got his first Oscar nomination for the Barbra Streisand romance, "The Prince Of Tides."
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES NEWTON HOWARD'S "THE REUNION")
GREIVING: But his career really hit warp speed when he scored the Harrison Ford/Tommy Lee Jones action film, "The Fugitive," directed by Andrew Davis.
ANDREW DAVIS: He really was a great classical player. He could play anything. He also had a great sense of rhythm. He could work in the classical world, and he could be very funky and hip at the same time.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES NEWTON HOWARD'S "HELICOPTER CHASE")
GREIVING: "The Fugitive" was a mammoth success. James Newton Howard was nominated for an Oscar, and the score was used as a temporary soundtrack for years by directors making action movies. He became the Bernard Herrmann to M. Night Shyamalan's Alfred Hitchcock, scoring a string of metaphysical thrillers that included "The Sixth Sense," "The Village" and "Signs."
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES NEWTON HOWARD'S "IN THE CORNFIELD")
GREIVING: He collaborated with Hans Zimmer to score "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight."
(SOUNDBITE OF HANS ZIMMER AND JAMES NEWTON HOWARD'S "HARVEY TWO-FACE")
GREIVING: Most recently, Howard wrote a meditation for violin and orchestra for "A Hidden Life," the Terrence Malick drama about an Austrian farmer who refuses to pledge loyalty to Hitler.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES NEWTON HOWARD'S "A HIDDEN LIFE")
GREIVING: Howard has been nominated for eight Oscars, but never won, maybe because he changes his style so often.
HOWARD: Yeah. I think that's been a strength and, maybe on some level, a weakness because I've never really believed that I have a clear, defining sound. I'm rather proud of the fact that I've worked on all sorts of movies, and they've all kind of worked out. I may be faking it sometimes, but that's kind of what we're doing anyway.
GREIVING: When director Paul Greengrass found himself in a completely unfamiliar genre - the American Western - with "News Of The World," he wanted one of the steadiest musical guns in town.
PAUL GREENGRASS: He's so incredibly accurate. And he doesn't drown you. That's the thing, you know. He's got impeccable taste as well as impeccable judgment. I mean, the score's achingly beautiful, I think.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES NEWTON HOWARD'S "THERE IS NO TIME FOR STORIES")
GREIVING: With more than 100 films to his credit, it's inevitable that James Newton Howard has scored his share of clunkers in the past 35 years. But he's approached each one with the same attitude.
HOWARD: I like to think that every score I do, I am connected to emotionally. Even the bad movies, you find some way to connect to some idea or some part of the story that will inspire you enough to give it the same amount of effort as you would with, you know, getting "Lawrence Of Arabia" to work on. I think the thrill of getting the music right against a scene is so big and so powerful for me. And when it happens, that's just really why I do it.
GREIVING: And across just about every genre, through countless rewrites and last-minute revisions, he notes he's never been fired. For NPR News, I'm Tim Greiving.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES NEWTON HOWARD'S "THE ROAD TO DALLAS")
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