A John Williams Score For Every Year of my Life – 1990 – Home Alone

John Williams contributed three scores in 1990, to three quite different films; Stanley and Iris, about the developing relationship between an illiterate cook, Stanley (played against type by Robert de Niro) and a grieving widow, Iris (played by Jane Fonda). Then there was Presumed Innocent, a legal thriller featuring Harrison Ford as a lawyer wrongfully … Continue reading A John Williams Score For Every Year of my Life – 1990 – Home Alone

New Releases

I've been busy getting a couple of albums ready for release. The first one was a collection of songs based on some of my favourite texts from the Good Book - "Songs from the Word" https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nP8tp_b3mXzkYWIt9bSBeLPKhhOX5tREw https://open.spotify.com/album/41PHEYtsI4vxNeOzFrYdOH?si=8a_zyHx5R8art3PaXUXq_Q Then, more recently, I released my purely instrumental album "Moons of Jupiter" - full of sweeping cosmic melodies … Continue reading New Releases

A John Williams Score for every year of my life: 1987 The Witches of Eastwick

I can't leave 1987 with just a look at "Empire of the Sun", which was the focus of my last blog entry in my ongoing look at a John Williams score for every year of my life. "The Witches of Eastwick" was the other remarkable score by Williams that year - it's just too great … Continue reading A John Williams Score for every year of my life: 1987 The Witches of Eastwick

A John Williams Score for every Year of my Life: 1987 – Empire of the Sun

Oh no! What do I do? In 1987, the year I turned 17, John Williams released two fantastic soundtrack albums, and I truly don't know which one I love more. That year was the year of "The Witches of Eastwick" and "The Empire of the Sun". Both are phenomenal scores. I fell in love with … Continue reading A John Williams Score for every Year of my Life: 1987 – Empire of the Sun

A John Williams Score for Every Year of my Life – 1985 – The River

OK, I'm cheating a little here. There was no score by John Williams in 1985. It was the first year since 1960 that didn't see a new score by Williams. Many of the years since that time had seen numerous scores. That tells you something about his work ethic, and how sought after he was. … Continue reading A John Williams Score for Every Year of my Life – 1985 – The River

A John Williams Score for Every Year of my Life – 1984 – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas took a different direction with Indiana Jones in the sequel to 1981's "Raiders of the Lost Ark". For one, the film is actually a prequel, with the action taking place in 1935, mainly set in India (after a short prelude in China). This was apparently to avoid using the Nazis … Continue reading A John Williams Score for Every Year of my Life – 1984 – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

A John Williams Score for Every Year of my life – 1983 Return of the Jedi

Just before Christmas I had the wonderful experience of watching The Return of the Jedi screened with a live orchestra playing the score. I'd seen the first two films in the saga in the same way a few years ago - and this one was held back a year by the pandemic. It's a curious … Continue reading A John Williams Score for Every Year of my life – 1983 Return of the Jedi

A John Williams score for every year of my life – 1982 – E.T. The Extra Terrestrial

E.T: I remember clearly going to see it for the first time, at the age of twelve. I remember seeing the posters, some of which had a boy and a... thing lying on hospital beds surrounded by plastic sheets, and I wondered what on earth I was going to see. And then the lights went … Continue reading A John Williams score for every year of my life – 1982 – E.T. The Extra Terrestrial

A John Williams Score for Every Year of my Life 1981 – The Raiders of the Lost Ark

With this, the first in the series of Indiana Jones films, John Williams created yet another outstanding opus - that surrounding the wisecracking, whip-swinging, fedora-wearing hero and sometimes archaeologist, Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford may have played the titular hero (and it's a wonder that despite his resemblances and affinities to a certain smuggler in a … Continue reading A John Williams Score for Every Year of my Life 1981 – The Raiders of the Lost Ark

A John Williams Score for Every Year of my Life 1980 – The Empire Strikes Back

It's a while since I wrote one of these posts on the work of my favourite composer, John Williams. I've had Covid, but that's not why. The truth is, since I left teaching to become wholly freelance with my own music and art, I haven't had a great deal of time to write. And that's … Continue reading A John Williams Score for Every Year of my Life 1980 – The Empire Strikes Back

A John Williams Score for every Year of my Life 9: A bit of a mix, 1978

So I've reached the year I turned eight. In that year, John Williams was called upon to score a number of feature films, with wide-ranging subject matter - from superheroes to a man-eating shark. I simply cannot choose one score to epitomise his output that year, so I shall choose a theme (motif) or two … Continue reading A John Williams Score for every Year of my Life 9: A bit of a mix, 1978

A John Williams Score for Every Year of my Life 8a – Close Encounters

1977 was a big year for John Williams. He wrote the scores to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, as well as a certain space opera set a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. It would be remiss of me not to include both of these immense scores, different as they are. … Continue reading A John Williams Score for Every Year of my Life 8a – Close Encounters

A John Williams Score for Every Year of My Life – 1975 Jaws

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BePfzCOMRZQ&list=OLAK5uy_knTCF7Agg3xAnZ4xzhdDsgq2OvaMzYBrI It has to be done. Whilst I am a great fan of the other score of 1975 which Williams wrote for "The Eiger Sanction", I couldn't not devote this blog entry to the stroke of absolute mastery which is Jaws. As a teacher, I often use the theme from Jaws to illustrate how composers … Continue reading A John Williams Score for Every Year of My Life – 1975 Jaws