Best known for his hauntingly atmospheric work with filmmaker
David Lynch, composer
Angelo Badalamenti was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1938; a classically trained performer, he spent the early years of his career playing the Catskills resort area, later writing and arranging for singers including
Shirley Bassey and country star
Mel Tillis. Under the name
Andy Badale, he entered the film industry in 1973, debuting with the score to the action film Gordon's War. Despite subsequent work on such features as 1974's Law and Disorder and 1976's Across the Great Divide,
Badalamenti remained largely unknown before hooking up with
Lynch on the soundtrack of the director's 1986 masterpiece Blue Velvet; they subsequently worked together on the features Wild at Heart, Lost Highway, and The Straight Story. Perhaps the most famous fruit of their collaboration was the cult hit television series Twin Peaks, for which
Badalamenti created one of the most distinctive and evocative theme songs in TV history. The duo also wrote and produced a pair of LPs for ethereal chanteuse
Julee Cruise, 1989's Floating into the Night and 1993's The Voice of Love, and staged an avant-garde musical theater piece titled Industrial Symphony No. 1. In 1996,
Badalamenti shifted gears, teaming with
James vocalist
Tim Booth for the LP Booth and the Bad Angel.
Badalamenti subsequently worked on the scores for such films as Dark Water, The Wicker Man and Edge of Love. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
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The Edge of Love
Arlington Road