The Barry Gray Archive

Overview

Taking a look at the Barry Gray archive in an attempt to understand why the Luminous Spooks TV advert (and other material) is missing.

Sources

• Barry Gray archive - biography, recording sessions, archive info etc.

• document by archive associate Dr Evans.

Main objectives of archivists

These are inferred rather than explicitly stated. The focus is unsurprisingly very much on Gray's work for Gerry Anderson's TV series and films:

• preservation of original* recordings on tape by digital transfer,

• preservation of manuscripts by digital scanning,

• commercial exploitation for the benefit of Gray's estate (the copyright-holder for the Anderson-related recordings is Sony/ATV Music).

 * In (at least?) one case (the BOAC advert), the recording in the archive is not an original and was actually derived from the optical track on film.

Current activity?

The web site seems unchanged from when I first saw it around 2012 and there's no news section to indicate on-going activity. Sadly chief archivist Ralph Titterton died a few years ago. Two of the companies involved are no longer in business - Kindred Productions (external co. responsible for digital transfer of tape tracks, dissolved 2024) and Gray Lady Productions (formed by archivists, dissolved 2010). Anderson-related recordings ('remastered', presumably from the archive) continue to be released by Silva Screen and Fanderson - at the time of writing in 2025 the latest such release was in 2024. Other than making available digital recordings for these releases, I suspect there is no current activity at the archive.

Limited information

The only hard information provided on their website is a summary of each logged recording session. Ideally there would also be:

• a catalogue of the contents of the physical (tape) archive,

• a catalogue of the contents of the digital archive (to help identify recordings not digitized, & those digitized but not released),

• a list of material deemed missing from the archive,

• more detailed information (if present) about the recording sessions.

Stand By for Adverts

It was with great excitement that I came across an album of Barry Gray's soundtracks, Stand By For Adverts, soon after its release in 2011 by Trunk Records, produced in association with the archive. There is more information about the content here. I think it's fair to say it was released as a bit of retro fun, in contrast to the Anderson material which is no doubt taken very seriously at the archive! The album has 81 tracks and I thought that surely the soundtrack to the Spooks TV advert would be there. It wasn't listed, however, so perhaps then it was one of the untitled tracks that are on the album? I listened to previews of those, but nothing sounded remotely spooky. I couldn't believe it - no Spooks ad, even though there are not one but two tracks for Quaker's short-lived Banana Mellows breakfast cereal to taunt us!

When I contacted the archivist, I was told that while they had some unreleased material, (Gray's contribution to) the soundtrack for the TV ad was most definitely not in the archive. 

Did Gray deem ads in general to be not worth keeping? Even if that were true for some, it was not true of all. For example, on the introduction to the BOAC ad soundtrack, Gray tells us it was recorded from the optical track for the film. Clearly he cared enough to have had it copied for keeping and to record an introduction to it.

Recording sessions

The archive website has information on Gray's recording sessions, taken from his notebooks. (These include sessions at his studio at home, referred to as BGS). The TV ad is not listed there either! Some of the sessions have names of people or organizations (and perhaps then were for more than one company or product). Could the recording have been done in one of these? Restricting our search to the 12 months before the ad was aired, there is a possible session in February 1965 at BGS, referred to as George & Fred commercials. However, there were 4 other musicians there and I suspect Gray's contribution to the Spooks TV ad would have been solo. That leaves the Basil and John sessions in January and February 1965, also at BGS, when no-one else was present, as a possible recording opportunity for the Spooks TV ad.

(There is also a session he did for Erwin Wasey, the agency for the Spooks advert, but in 1961. Presumably it was for a promotional film, but I wonder if it could have included some material for the agency to use later?)

To try to consider the possible fate of his recordings, let's now just look at the recording sessions at BGS, as there the tapes would have been totally under his control. 

Perhaps not all recordings Gray made alone at his studio were entered into his notebooks? There are only four such sessions logged for the Anderson years. However, surely he would have been active in the studio, composing, playing, experimenting and recording on many occasions on his own? Perhaps he only logged solo recording sessions there in exceptional circumstances, such as being up against a deadline and needing to make sure that he had the place to himself, for example? If so, then his contribution to the Spooks ad may not have been logged at all. (Nor is there any session listed for the sound effects made for the Dr. Who films! )

To get the full picture of his TV advert output, we would need to look at editions of Television Mail for the period of interest, assuming that information for new TV ads is present, as it is for the Spooks ad. I'm not aware of this publication having been scanned, so I think a visit to the British Library will be necessary!

Archiving BGS recording sessions

A subset of the information on the recording sessions, this time just for the years 1960 to 1974, is here, and I have used this to do some analysis as the format makes it easier to copy into a spreadsheet. I have attempted to identify recording sessions at BGS for adverts for those years and then compared those with the tracks on Stand By For Adverts. Even allowing for the slim possibility that the untitled tracks were all recorded at BGS , I estimate there are at least 10 BGS recordings from those years that are missing from the album. While maybe one or two of these constitute part of the unreleased material referred to by the archivist, I'll assume for now that most are also missing from the archive.

There are over 600 tapes in his archive, so although the Spooks ad is not unique in its absence, it's still a mystery as to why so many ads should be missing when so much has survived. Perhaps if music or musical effects could be produced easily and quickly, they may not have been worth keeping? After all, we don't know what Gray's archiving policy was for such work, nor how long he would have kept them. For all recordings, it would likely have made sense to make and keep a temporary copy as a backup just in case. Once no longer needed, then perhaps a decision was made as to whether it was worth retaining.

Other possibilities for the absence of material from the digital archive

• Tape lost, discarded by mistake or binned during a housekeeping exercise? If not while stored at BGS, then perhaps when Gray moved home? Or perhaps during his retirement or after his death? There was plenty of time for something like this to have happened.

• Tape not digitized?  In his document Evans says most of the reels of Gray’s magnetic tapes have been digitized; there is no mention of what was on the remaining tapes or what plans there were to digitize them,

• Recording present on tape, but overlooked? With all due respect to those concerned, who have clearly done an amazing job, this possibility needs to be considered. Just one track on one tape in over 600 would still be a very impressive success rate.

• Tape damaged beyond recovery? While there were instances of partial loss where tapes had been spliced together, there is nothing to suggest an entire track was ever lost.

The Luvil ads

Those Luvil TV ads, mentioned earlier, surely with music and musical effects by Gray, are also absent from Stand By For Adverts. There is no specific entry for Luvil in the recording sessions, but there is a probable session for Lintas, the advertising agency that the HATS website tells us was used for those ads, given as Linta L.E.A.S in Dec 1963. The date seems about right for the earliest of the Luvil ads. The fairly simple eerie effect seems to be just the Ondes Martenot being played at that point, likely just single-layered. Not worth keeping the recording then? Not so -  the 'underwater army' music  that just precedes it is multi-instrumented and surely would have justified being kept.

Finally...

I think we can be pretty sure that the really important stuff (i.e. Gray's work for Anderson) has been digitized and made available for release. It's the rest which is a bit of a puzzle. The Spooks TV advert is just one of many that seem to be missing from the archive. I also wonder what became of the original recordings for the Dr. Who films. Are there any tapes with other sound effects Gray may have worked on? What about experimentation or works in progress? 

Most of what has been discussed here is pure speculation of course. I am full of admiration for what has been achieved at the archive, but for a clearer idea of what may have become of this material, it would need to be opened up to independent scrutiny - making available a catalogue of contents would be an excellent first step towards this.