[Thor Joachim Haga]

Sorry in advance for the long post here.

Great and super thorough review by Nils – impressive in itself – and he gets to showcase his own JW fandom.

As for the book itself, this is a supremely impressive affair. All the research that went into it over a period of several years, the constant negotiation for access – it has all resulted in a tome that will probably never be equalled as far as John Williams biographies are concerned.

As some of you know, I had plans for a Williams book myself, which never happened for various reasons. After eating up a bit of jealousy and frustration when I first heard of it, I eventually decided to embrace Tim’s project 100% (as a culture journalist based in LA, he would always have more access than I ever could anyway) and even aided him a little bit in the research process.

* My favourite part is unquestionably the first 200 pages. I disagree with Nils in that there are too many names and details in the pre-Williams years; as a geneaology buff, I absorbed all of it. And as a longtime Williams researcher myself, this is also where I find most of the information I wasn’t already aware of.

* I salute Tim for contributing his own opinions on films and scores, even if I quite often disagreed with the assessments (I think several of them are better than what he suggests). It’s something that gives a text life and even provokes, even if it’s somewhat unusual in a biography.

* Structurally, it’s an interesting approach to divide each chapters into segments that touch on different things. One could argue for an approach that was more chronological, i.e. year by year. But with a composer like Williams, it’s difficult to organize the different aspects – the personal life, the concert works, the film work etc. etc.

* When it comes to the analyses of the scores themselves, they work okay – and he comes a long way with adjectives when music-technical knowledge is lacking. It seems to have much in common with how it’s done in track-by-track analyses in liner notes. I would perhaps have opted for a slightly different approach, i.e. first identifying the overall style or theme or approach of the film, then how the score responds to that more generally, and then a curated selection of scenes that display this.

* I don’t know if it’s an American thing, but I’ve always wondered about the inclusion of so many quotes from outside reviews. Once in a while, they are useful to illustrate the reception of a given film, but it was a little too much here, at the end of every single film analysis. I think Tim could have been more confident in his own opinions – one doesn’t always have to say what people “out there” thought of it.

* The photos are fantastic. Cool idea to have those middle pages filled with photos, but also some throughout the text. Many of these, I had never seen before.

* It’s tricky to balance one’s fandom with objective analysis, and there were perhaps moments where I felt the salutations were somewhat over-the-top (again, maybe that’s an American thing…we’re more “sober” over here).

* Tim displays fine, colourful language throughout, and I don’t think he should worry too much about Willliams’ critical remarks.

The book is on my shelf now, but I’ll no doubt re-read it in a not too distant future. I really want to savour and cement some of the details that Tim managed to unearth.