John Williams -- Star Wars (Main Title)

 

It's time for a special Wednesday edition of Reminiscings of Youth, although we'll have the regular Thursday ROY tomorrow since the singer there is about to be inducted into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. 

Well, May the 4th and all that! Of course, this has been the day to celebrate all things "Star Wars", although the original 1977 film that launched everything off was released on May 25th. I was reminded of the auspiciousness of today because our local Blue Jays are having their May the 4th festivities tonight for their rubber match against the Yankees.

Now, to be honest with you, I'm no longer a fan of the franchise since out of the many related movies that have come out over the past 45 years, I only really like "A New Hope", "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Rogue One". But before I end up getting my gears ground over the decreasing satisfaction levels of the other releases, let me get into the fact that I'm happy to finally welcome the legendary composer and musician, John Williams to "Kayo Kyoku Plus". Yep, his scores for the franchise have acted as much of a beloved character as R2-D2, C-3PO, Luke Skywalker and all of the rest. 

Of course, there is the main title that has thrilled everyone and has become one of the most recognizable, if not the most recognizable film theme in Hollywood history. I used to listen to that heroic brassy overture over and over again at my friend's house when he was able to buy the soundtrack and then when I got my copy, I was happy to wear out the needle on the family stereo for the main title as well as the other tracks including "Princess Leia's Theme" and "TIE Fighter Attack". The climactic Death Star battle wouldn't have been as epic, thrilling or joyful-to-the-point-of-tears without Williams' accompanying music. 

Who would have thought up of music that would have normally belonged to the soundtrack of a swashbuckling adventure for a sci-fi film that usually got some electronic music instead? It obviously worked; the album sold like hotcakes, and I'm happy to say that it's still on my shelf after all these years. Williams had already been around for a lot of other projects such as the horror-thriller "Jaws" from a couple of years earlier and additional movies and television shows, but "Star Wars" was the first time that I got to know him.

And boy, was I in for a surprise to find out that he, under the name Johnny Williams, had provided incidental music for at least the first season of a beloved sitcom "Gilligan's Island" in the 1960s. I was watching that since I was still in diapers!

In addition, Williams had already been getting his feet wet in scoring for sci-fi projects since he came up with the theme and score for the show "Land of the Giants" back in 1968. I used to watch this on WUTV Buffalo on the weekends. Now that I think of it, the theme does sound very Williams.

Finally, I mentioned this on the ROY article for "Peter Gunn", but he was the guy on the piano pounding away at the keys for what is still one of the coolest detective theme songs ever created, with the composer being another legend, Henry Mancini.

The main title for "Star Wars" won't be the only John Williams article since there are quite a few other amazing themes that I've enjoyed listening to over the decades. But the strange thing is that before I began the ROY series, I'd actually written an initial 2015 article on that main title because of a Japanese singer's attempt at it, Masato Shimon（子門真人）.

Actually, the following two songs were released back in June 1977 but they're close enough.

Yumiko Araki -- Nagisa de Cross（渚でクロス）

Yukio Sasaki -- Kimi wa Kaze（君は風）