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!

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

Rick Beato, You have changed my musical life. I'm 77 years old and the musical perspectives that you have shown me continually amaze me. I cannot imagine how you are influencing younger musicians. They would be wise to follow you. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

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

John Williams knows the score...

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.

“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.

His music routinely makes me cry, I think because it reconnects me to the happiest moments of my childhood in a profound way.

The songs in these movies is as iconic as the movies themselves. As soon as you hear the first few notes you’re immediately transported to the first time you heard them. It’s crazy. His music is literally timeless.

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

The fact that he's still with us makes him an unparalleled music celebrity. IMHO his greatest achievement is the validation of film music in concert halls, schools, conservatories all over the world. When he conducted his music in Viena, Berlin or Milano in front of audiences that dismissed film scores in the past... that's something to be so proud. You could see it in the faces of many of the musicians... they grew up with those themes, they transcend the films they were composed for... those leit motives take you to the place where you heard them for the first time, the people you were with... that man is family to me.

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.

This is kind of like my argument that Vince Guaraldi may be the most famous jazz musician of all time. Most people don't know his name but they know his music. Who hasn't seen a Charlie Brown cartoon sometime in their life. The music he did for those cartoons was my first exposure to jazz and I'm sure a lot of other people can say the same.

As soon as Rick said John Williams I was like omg of course it is. The way that man was able to imprint emotion, power, mystery, fear and mystical into his music is why his music made all of these movies so much better without these themes I feel the movies wouldn't have hit the same way they did.

May 1977. 10 years old. Crest Theater. Star Wars. Theater goes dark. The crawl starts, the music explodes into the theater. It had and still has a profound impact on me. Begged my mom to go out and find the soundtrack, on cassette. Opened a whole world of music I didn't know existed. I still get chills, every damn time. 47 years later. You can make lots of valid arguments for others, but over the last 50-60 years - there can be no debate. Great stuff Rick

In 1984 the USA Olympic comitee commissioned John Williams to write a piece for the LA Olympic Games. It was called ‘Olympic Fanfare and Theme’ and was played live at the games.

His son (Joseph williams) also did the theme for Gummi Bears cartoon, sang the adult Simba parts in Lion King and was a lead singer of Toto.

At 58, I was 10 for Jaws, 11 in Close Encounters, 12 for Star Wars & Superman, etc etc. Like many here Williams’ music is in my DNA as well! Just this little vid made me well up! Fantastic beyond words is the 50 year collaboration of Spielberg & Williams.