Today is the birthday of composer John Williams of movie soundtrack fame. He turns 79.
Millions of people — maybe billions of people — have heard the music of John Williams, whose first movie score was for 1960s Because They’re Young.
During the 1970s, we learned to love Williams for the music in big disaster movies such as The Towering Inferno, Earthquake and The Poseidon Adventure.
All that work he did for Steven Spielberg and George Lucas infected our minds also. Remember Star Wars? How about Jaws? Does Raiders of the Lost Ark ring a bell?
Since his first Oscar nomination, for 1967’s Valley of the Dolls, John Williams has won five Oscars: for Fiddler on the Roof, Jaws, Star Wars, E.T. and Schindler’s List.
He’s been nominated a whopping 45 times, most recently for 2005’s Munich.
In honor of his birthday, we present this ridiculous video called “John Williams Shreds Again” (it’s a sequel and John Williams loved sequels):
To see a complete list of his Oscar nominations, go here.
To see a complete list of his Grammy nominations, go here (Williams has won 18 Grammys out of 59 nominations).
And to read a quick summary of his career, go here.