You're listening to 20,000 Hertz, the stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds.
I'm Dallas Taylor.
In our last episode, we explored the early life and career of legendary film composer John Williams.
John got his start as a session piano player, recording with orchestras and pop singers,
and then started composing for film and TV.
In the early 70s, he teamed up with a young Steven Spielberg
and scored two of his early blockbusters, Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Through Spielberg, John met George Lucas and created the iconic music for Star Wars.
By the end of the 1970s, John was the hottest composer in Hollywood scoring huge films like the 1978 Superman movie.
Star of Superman, the late Christopher Reeve, loved John's music, and even showed up for the recording sessions.
In the liner notes for a Superman music compilation, John said, quote, he was kind of a fan.
He would sit next to the podium or sit in the recording room.
And also later films that I did, Chris would come around, sometimes even unannounced,
and just sit and enjoy listening to the orchestra.
In 1979, John was back with his friend Steven Spielberg,
and after two consecutive hits, Spielberg is on top of the world.
That's Tim Grieving, author of John Williams, A Composer's Life.
He gets his proverbial blank check to make his next movie, which is 1941,
which is a, in my opinion, horrible whiff of something attempting to be a comedy set during World War II.
It's a great score.