The Way to Present the Classics

KEN BARNES

Writer,
producer,
broadcaster,
musicologist,
film historian,
film maker,
songwriter
and music publisher.

Ken Barnes

European Marketing Director for Ampex Corporation of America. (1969-’71).

1972 returned to freelance production (records, films, commercials), author and scriptwriter.
As author: Sinatra and the Great Song Stylists (Ian Allen. 1972)
The Crosby Years (Elm Tree Books-St Martin’s Press.1980)
As freelance radio producer, supervised over 200 orchestral sessions for BBC Radio Two (1971-1973)

As record producer, worked internationally between London, Los Angeles, Nashville and New York recording such legendary stars as Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee, Slim Whitman, Frankie Laine, Connie Francis, Jack Jones, etc. selling over 5 million records and earning a string of Silver and Gold discs and 1 Platinum.
In 1974 formed musical publishing partnership with arranger-composer Pete Moore (composer of famed Pearl and Dean theme) and a shared directorship of Top Hat Music.

As producer and/or director worked on many commercials covering such products as Nike, Slumberland, Johnsons Baby Powder, etc.

As scriptwriter (radio and TV): Wrote over 90 scripts for the BBC plus special material for the Parkinson Show and UK comedians such as Roy Hudd and Les Dawson. In the US wrote special material for Bing Crosby , Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly , Peter Sellers and others.

His knowledge of cinema (from silents to the present day) has been described as “encyclopaedic.” As a film historian, has given lectures at numerous film societies both in the UK and the USA – including the Museum of the Moving Image and NFT (London) and the UCLA ( Los Angeles )

In 2001, foreseeing the impending success of the DVD, formed Laureate Presentations Ltd, a company specialising in the presentation of films on DVD.
In the last two years, Ken Barnes has become the UK’s busiest freelance producer of DVDs for various major companies both in the UK and the USA.

In 2003 when Universal announced that they would be doing a special DVD edition of Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” – often dubbed “The greatest film ever made,” it was Ken Barnes who was chosen to produce it. The result was both a critical and commercial success (and remained in Amazon UK’s top 100 for 18 months.

Over the past two years, Ken Barnes has acted as European representative for Sinatra Enterprises in Hollywood whose recent combined CD/DVD – “THE RAT PACK – LIVE AND SWINGIN’ “ is now nearing one million sales.
He has also worked for Hart Sharp Video of New York whose DVD of the film SUPER SIZE ME has sold over 700 thousand copies.
Ken’s assignment for 2005 in association with Sinatra Enterprises and Hart Sharp is a prestigious 50th Anniversary DVD Special Edition of Otto Preminger’s THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM.