Angelo Badalamenti, ‘Twin Peaks’ Composer, Dies at 85
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Angelo Badalamenti, who created the haunting, memorable scores for “Twin Peaks,” “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive” and collaborated with David Lynch on several other films, died Sunday. He was 85.
His great-nephew announced his death on Instagram, writing “My great-uncle Angelo Badalamenti has crossed the barrier to another plane of existence.”
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David Lynch, on his daily weather report Monday, said simply “No music today.”
For Lynch, he also composed scores for “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me,” “Wild at Heart,” “Lost Highway” and “The Straight Story.” Among his other scores were “Cabin Fever,” “Auto Focus,” “Before the Fall,” “Dark Water,” “Secretary” and “A Very Long Engagement.”
Lynch told the L.A. Times in 1990, “Some of the happiest moments I’ve ever had have been working with Angelo. He’s got a big heart, and he allowed me to come into his world and get involved with music.
“When we started working together, instantly we had a kind of a rapport — me not knowing anything about music, but real interested in sound effects and mood. I realized a lot of things about sound effects and music working with Angelo, how close they are to one another.”
Born in Brooklyn, he earned a bachelor’s and masters from the Manhattan School of Music and worked in theater and advertising as well as scoring “Law and Disorder” and “Gordon’s War” before meeting Lynch.
Brought in as Isabella Rossellini’s singing coach for “Blue Velvet,” Badalamenti collaborated with Lynch to write “Mysteries of Love” when they couldn’t secure the rights to the song “Blue Velvet.” The vocals for “Mysteries of Love” were provided by Julee Cruise, who went on to work with them on projects such as “Twin Peaks.” Badalamenti also appeared in “Blue Velvet” as the piano player.
Lynch and Badalamenti co-wrote the songs for Julee Cruise’s album “Floating Into the Night,” which included songs from “Blue Velvet” and “Twin Peaks,” and also co-wrote the music for her second album, the 1993 “The Voice of Love.” Cruise died earlier this year.
He worked on the scores for films such as “Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors” and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” before reteaming with Lynch and Cruise for the soundtrack to the “Twin Peaks” series, which featured a different theme playing for each major character. The “Twin Peaks Theme” won a Grammy for pop instrumental performance.
Badalamenti told Chris Willman for the L.A. Times, “One of the things I just did for ‘Twin Peaks’ is 15 minutes long and called ‘The Lowest Circle in Hell.’ And it’s just very low, dark, sustained things that are so beautiful to me. Maybe a little strange to others, but it’s transcendent, to me. And I love putting those things as a bed against something maybe a little more palatable.”
He returned for the Showtime reboot of “Twin Peaks,” which utilized new compositions from Badalamenti as well as returning to themes from the original series.
The World Soundtrack Awards honored him in 2008 and ASCAP recognized him with the Henry Mancini award in 2011.
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