Blog
Bill Conti
11/28/2012
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Bill Conti – Having a hard time making ends
meet… this husband and father of two made the gutsy decision to stop playing
music in small night clubs (which provided his only income) and follow his own
‘truth’ and became an Oscar & Emmy Award Winning Composer!
11/19/2012
The Rocky
movie theme song “Gonna Fly Now” is what connected me to Bill
Conti. I heard the story of how Slyvester Stallone struggled to get a
small budget to produce the first Rocky movie. The budget
for the movie’s important music score was very small – only $25,000 for
everything! Bill took a chance on a small movie that became a
blockbuster!
Recently I
got to interview Bill – what a treat! He is not only one of Hollywood’s most
respected, prolific and entertaining composers but he’s a really nice man as
well.
During the
interview he surprised me by playing some of his hits on his piano for us –
hits like “Gonna Fly Now” (Rocky), “The Right Stuff”
(he won an Oscar for the score of The Right Stuff), and “For
Your Eyes Only” (Bond movie – For Your Eyes Only) -
incredible! The man’s a master!
Later in the
interview Bill gave us some advice I will always remember and will pass on to
others… he says that you have to find “your truth and live it”. In
other words you can’t say you’re a composer if you’re playing other people’s
music in night clubs night after night for 20 years. The harsh reality of
a friend’s words made him make up his mind to take a huge risk, quit his night
club job and become the composer he always wanted to be!
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