Winter Issue - Who Is John Williams?

Who is John Williams?

If I were to conduct a survey asking people to name the greatest musicians of all time, encompassing all the genres of music, I would hear names like Elvis Presley and John Lennon for rock.  Country fans would certainly say Garth Brooks and George Strait.  Michael Jackson and Madonna would definitely be thrown out there from pop fans.  The old school jazz fans might shout out Miles Davis and John Coltrane.  That’s a pretty great list and everyone named so far most certainly deserves to be on it.  Anybody obvious missing?  No?..........What about John Williams?  Whenever I mention John Williams to most people I get a reaction of “WHO?!”  Yes, John Williams is one of the greatest musicians of all time.  Right up there with everyone already mentioned earlier in this article.  “Well if he’s so great how come I don’t know any of his songs?”  The answer is pretty simple – you do know his songs, a lot in fact…you just never knew it.  

John Williams is a symphonic composer and conductor who has composed many of the most famous movie soundtracks we all know by heart.  You don’t know his voice because he never sings.  You don’t know his face because Rolling Stone and Spin never feature symphony composers on their covers nor do they write articles about them. 

John Williams was born in Floral Park, New York in 1932.  He comes from a family of musicians.  His father was a jazz percussionist; his older brothers are percussionists and conductors as well.  In 1950 he moved to Los Angeles where he attended UCLA. He learned how to arrange music and compose from an Italian composer named Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.  Then in 1952 he was drafted into the Air Force where his talents were utilized, as he was put in charge of conducting and arranging the music for the U.S. Air Force Marching Band. 

After his Air Force service ended, he returned to school.  This time he was studying at the Julliard School in New York City.  When he completed his studies he then began composing soundtracks for a variety of television shows and ‘B’ movies.  Williams got his big break when in 1974 a young up and coming director named Steven Spielberg who had heard Williams’ work asked him to compose the soundtrack for a movie he was working on called JAWS.  Another young up and coming director and good friend of Steven Spielberg named George Lucas was looking for a composer to write and conduct the score to a space opera he was writing called Star Wars and Spielberg recommended Williams to him.  This would kick off what would be arguably the greatest decade of music ever composed in all of history.  1975 – Jaws, 1977 – Star Wars, 1977 – Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1978 – Superman, 1980 – The Empire Strikes Back, 1981 – Raiders of the Lost Ark,  1982 – E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, 1983 – Return of the Jedi & 1984 – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  With this amazing run Williams cemented himself as THE composer in Hollywood.  To this day Williams is still the go to composer for major motion pictures.  Other soundtracks he has composed that are easily recognizable include Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Harry Potter, The Olympics on NBC & Sunday Night Football just to name a few.

 

Over the course of his career John Williams has been nominated for 44 Academy awards, 6 Emmy awards, 25 Golden Globe awards, 65 Grammy awards & 49 Oscar awards.  His greatest honor came in 2005 when the American Film Institute selected his 1977 score to Star Wars as the greatest film score of all time.  So to answer the question of who is John Williams…you need only hum your favorite movie theme and there you will find the answer.

 

Sean O'Brien is the Music Writer for the Holiday Café. He enjoys going to concerts, playing the drums and rocking out to Grunge music.  He resides in McDonald, PA with his wife and daughter.