The MOST Well-Known Musical Artist In History?... It's Not Even Close

Oldest person to be nominated for an Oscar at 90 !

Rick, get your ass on a plane to California and go interview him while you can! He's so important to music history. I feel like you could have an interview with him that would truly create a historic record. Go for it!

Don’t forget Schindler’s List. If the violin part in the theme doesn’t choke you up, I don’t know what will.

True story: When recording the climax of ET, Williams couldn’t get the score to connect with the edit. He tried and tried but it didn’t work. He told the techs to turn off the projector and let him record the piece as he heard it. When it was done, Spielberg loved it so much, he went back to his editor and had her RE-EDIT THE MOVIE to the SCORE(!). The NEVER happens.

“Without John Williams, bikes don't really fly, nor do brooms in Quidditch matches, nor do men in red capes, there is no Force, dinosaurs do not walk the Earth, we do not wonder, we do not weep, we do not believe.” -Steven Spielberg

I wrote a letter to John Williams when I was around 20 and he sent me an autographed picture, which I still have. John Williams is probably the reason I became a musician. I was that nerd buying movie scores at seven years old.

We old-timers remember that he wrote BOTH themes to "Lost in Space" back in the sixties as."Johnny Williams."

Ok, 73 year old man here, and when you played the ET fanfare I had to fight back tears. Damn you.

One thing I find fascinating about John William's music is how it's nearly impossible to think about Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, ET, and so on, without instantly thinking about William's score. He was able to build a connection between film and music in such a was that no other composer ever could. And another thing I find even more fascinating is his work in Jaws, in particular. I mean, even if you have no idea that this film exists, whenever you see the image of a Shark, that second minor interval immediately pops in your head.

John Williams knows the score...

Rick, I'm a 50 year old musician and I have to tell you you hit the nail right on the head. John Williams has been my absolute favorite composer of all time. The first melody I ever figured out how to play on piano was Superman. And I will gladly admit the "fanfare" section from the end of E.T. still brings me to tears. That's saying a ton coming from a guy who loves bands like Metallica, Rush, and Tool. John Williams is probably the single most influential person on my musical passion.

Not many pieces of music can make me cry. But his "Schindler's List" suite is an absolute heart-breaker.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind - the entire premise of the movie is based communicating through the musical theme

His little riff of “When you wish upon a star” at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind is utter brilliance.

It's fascinating that John Williams goes into a specific room in an old colonial age home in New England and there in the quiet of that room lit by sunlight, the inspiration comes for most of his music.

The music to E.T. made me cry when I watched it as a child, now I’m 47 and it still makes me cry. John Williams has drawn upon all his influences and distilled the best bits into these pieces of musical art and turned them into something more than the sum of their parts! Total Genius! Definitely the G.O.A.T in my humble opinion!! Please say that you’ve got him lined up for an interview!!!!????!!!! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 ❤️

It blows my mind how obvious this is and I never thought about it.

If you balled your eyes out while watching the end of E.T. as a child, like pretty much everyone did in 1982, you cried because John Williams WANTED you to cry. Try listening to the entire end sequence of that score with your eyes closed. No visuals, no dialogue--just the LSO playing William's score. You'll still get a lump in your throat. Pure genius.

So glad you did this one. I’ve seen John Williams symphonic performances with and without accompanying video and people just stand up and cheer! It’s a wonderful evening out summer or winter, spring or fall.

This might be the most perfect and completely correct video editorial I have ever seen. So obvious, but I didn't come up with the answer myself.