Perhaps it was his music to accompany the dark psyche of Michael Douglas in "Falling Down" which suggested his suitability to this director, and Howard has also created some deliciously dark material for "Devil's Advocate". This series of films has resulted in some truly memorable scores from the composer such as The Village with its mix of beauty and dread. Knight Shyalaman, producing some unique and disturbing story-telling and suspense-laden, psychological music. That dark side merely hinted at in "Prince of Tides" has been more to the fore in recent years, since Howard seems to have struck up a fruitful artistic partnership with the director M. Indeed every score produced by Howard does everything that a director could ask for, plus a little bit more. At other times the soundtrack hints at dark undertones without revealing too much of the background story. "Prince of Tides" for which he was rightly oscar-nominated, has a wistful, nostalgic main theme with plenty of strings. "Wyatt Earp" demonstrated his Western genre credentials with the sort of music pioneered by Aaron Copland. There has been a fair quantity of family or romantic comedies (many starring Julia Roberts) for him to score, like "Pretty Woman", "My Girl", "Three Men and a Lady", "One Fine Day" and "French Kiss", but enough material from other genres to keep things interesting. Howard belongs to that small select group of composers who can also be called upon to create a suitable soundtrack for virtually any large budget Hollywood film. His brother Arliss Howard became an actor, and James Newton Howard has scored at least one of his films. Howard has other connections in the film industry too including a brief marriage to actress Rosanna Arquette. It wasn't long before Howard was asked to compose film scores himself and he has never looked back. An early introduction to film music was playing keyboards for Jerry Goldsmith on "Twilight Zone: The Movie". This experience led to him working with many great singers, and gaining experience in conducting and arranging. He joined Elton John's group of backing musicians and went on tour with the legend. He played keyboards, piano or synth in other groups and as a session musician, while releasing a couple of solo albums of his music. James Newton Howard started out playing keyboards (as "Jim Howard") in a little known rock band called "Mama Lion".
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