1) John Towner Willi… Read Full Bio ↴There are at least five artists with this name;
1) John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. With a career spanning over six decades, he has composed some of the most popular, recognizable, and critically acclaimed film scores in cinematic history, including those of the Star Wars series, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the Indiana Jones series, the first two Home Alone films, Hook, the first two Jurassic Park films, Schindler's List, and the first three Harry Potter films. He has a very distinct sound that mixes romanticism, impressionism and atonal music with complex orchestration. The classical music critic Marcus Paus argues that Williams' "satisfying way of embodying complex dissonances and avant-garde techniques within a larger tonal framework" makes him "one of the great composers of any century".
Williams has been associated with director Steven Spielberg since 1974, composing music for all but three of his feature films. Other works by Williams include theme music for the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, NBC Sunday Night Football, "The Mission" theme used by NBC News and Seven News in Australia, the television series Lost in Space and Land of the Giants, and the incidental music for the first season of Gilligan's Island. Williams has also composed numerous classical concertos and other works for orchestral ensembles and solo instruments. He served as the Boston Pops's principal conductor from 1980 to 1993, and is currently the orchestra's laureate conductor.
Williams has won 24 Grammy Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, five Academy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. With 51 Academy Award nominations, Williams is the second most-nominated individual, after Walt Disney. In 2005, the American Film Institute selected Williams's score to 1977's Star Wars as the greatest American film score of all time. The soundtrack to Star Wars was additionally preserved by the Library of Congress into the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Williams was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl's Hall of Fame in 2000, and was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004 and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2016. Williams composed the score for eight of the top 20 highest-grossing films at the U.S. box office (adjusted for inflation).
John Towner Williams was born on February 8, 1932 in Floral Park, New York, to Esther (née Towner) and Johnny Williams, a jazz percussionist who played with the Raymond Scott Quintet. Williams has said of his lineage, "My father was a Maine man—we were very close. My mother was from Boston. My father's parents ran a department store in Bangor, Maine, and my mother's father was a cabinetmaker. [...] People with those roots are not inclined to be lazy."
Williams married Barbara Ruick, an American actress and singer, in 1956. Together they had three children: Jennifer (b. 1956), Mark Towner Williams (b. 1958), and Joseph (b. 1960), who is the lead singer of Toto. The two remained married until her death in 1974. In 1980, Williams married Samantha Winslow, a photographer.
2) John Christopher Williams is a classical guitar player.
Born in Melbourne, Australia, on 24 April 1941, to an English father (Len Williams) and an Australian-Chinese mother, Williams was taught initially by his father. At the age of twelve he went to Italy to study under "The Maestro," Andrés Segovia. Later, he attended the Royal College of Music in London, studying piano because the school did not have a guitar department at the time. Upon graduation, he was offered the opportunity to create such a department. He seized the opportunity and ran it for the first two years. Williams has maintained links with the College (and with the Northern College in Manchester) ever since.
Williams is best known as a classical guitarist, but has explored many different musical traditions. He has collaborated with Julian Bream and Paco Peña and was a member of the fusion group Sky. He is also a composer and arranger.
Williams has commissioned guitar concertos from composers such as Stephen Dodgson, André Previn, Patrick Gowers, Richard Harvey, and Steve Gray. He has also worked with composers from his native Australia, including Phillip Houghton, Peter Sculthorpe, Ross Edwards (composer), and Nigel Westlake, to produce guitar works that capture the spirit of his homeland.
He enjoyed a worldwide hit single with his recording of Cavatina by Stanley Myers, used as the theme tune to the Oscar-winning film The Deer Hunter (1979). The piece had originally been written for piano, for another film ten years earlier, The Walking Stick (1970) but re-written for guitar and expanded by Myers at Williams' invitation. In 1973, Cleo Laine wrote lyrics and recorded the song "He Was Beautiful" accompanied by John Williams. A year later, it was a top-five UK hit single for Iris Williams (no relation).
At the invitation of producer Martin Lewis he created a highly acclaimed classical-rock fusion duet with celebrated rock guitarist Pete Townshend of Townshend's anthemic "Won't Get Fooled Again" for the 1979 Amnesty International benefit show The Secret Policeman's Ball. The duet was featured on the resulting album and the film version of the show – bringing Williams to the broader attention of the rock audience.
The relationship with Lewis led to Williams' classical-rock fusion band Sky being invited to give the first-ever rock concert to be held at Westminster Abbey – a benefit concert for Amnesty that Lewis produced in February 1981.
He is visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music, London.
Williams and his artist wife Kathy Panama reside in London and Australia.
3) John Williams
John Williams is internationally regarded as one of the foremost players of Irish music today. With five All-Ireland titles to his credit, John is the only American-born competitor ever to win first place in the "senior concertina" category. His additional talents on flute, button accordion, bodhran, and piano distinguish him as a much sought after multi-instrumentalist in the acoustic scene around the world.
Born and raised on the Southwest Side of Chicago, John spent his summers during college on the Southwest coast of Ireland in his father’s village of Doolin, Co. Clare. Like Chicago, Doolin became a major musical crossroads for John and countless other local and international musicians to meet and exchange music. Gigging every night in the pubs of Doolin and Lisdoonvarna soon led to performances in Galway, Cork, Dublin, Belfast, Paris, Britanny, Zurich, and New York City (bio http://www.johnwilliamsmusic.com/bio.htm).
3) John Williams
A blues/jazz guitarist in Seattle, Washington, whose music is available at Magnatune.com (bio http://magnatune.com/artists/john_williams).
3) John Knowles Williams
An experimental/indie musician. Music is available at sweetnuthin.letsneverdie.net/Music/My_Recordings/ or www.myspace.com/JohnKWilliams.
Christmas Star And Preparing The Trap
John Williams Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Wonder what they see, are they watching me?
Christmas star, you watch the world so wisely
At my journey's end, will you be my true friend?
Star light, shine bright
See me through the dark night
Light mine, half way
The lyrics of John Williams's song "Christmas Star And Preparing The Trap" are full of wonder and hopeful anticipation. The distant stars in the sky are imagined as watching over us, and the Christmas star is singled out as the one which watches over us the most wisely. The singer of the song looks to this star as a potential friend and guide on their journey.
The use of the star as a symbol is powerful and evocative, and it speaks to the sense of magic and wonder that surrounds the holiday season. The star, with its steady light and timeless presence, represents something constant and unchanging in a world full of uncertainty and chaos. The lyrics, with their repeated emphasis on light shining through darkness, offer a sense of hope and comfort to listeners, reminding us that even in the darkest of times, we can always look to something bright and beautiful to guide us home.
Line by Line Meaning
Distant stars, at home up in the heavens
Stars, far away in the sky, comfortable in their place in the universe
Wonder what they see, are they watching me?
Is it possible that they are observing my actions?
Christmas star, you watch the world so wisely
During the holiday season, your light illuminates the whole world, taking note of everything with intelligence
At my journey's end, will you be my true friend?
As I reach the conclusion of my voyage, will your light guide me and become a reliable companion?
Star light, shine bright
Radiant light of the stars, shine and sparkle
See me through the dark night
Illuminate my path and protect me during moments of obscurity and uncertainty
Light mine, half way
Illuminate the path before me at the halfway point of my journey
Guide me home for Christmas day
Lead me to my destination safely for the holiday celebration
Contributed by Aaron M. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Lone Wonderer
I actually love the reason Kevin is going after Marv and Harry this time. It’s not to protect his home. It’s because there going after orphans and children. As a kid he could relate so he wanted to protect them. He didn’t have to go after them. But it was the right thing to do. I like his motivations in this better.
Crystal Studios
Right? If he was a Hogwarts house he would be a Gryyffindor 💗
Christel Vinot
@Z _ It's reasonable to protect your house, and it's reasonable to protect thousands of children. It's just more noble and humbling to prefer to protect others rather than yourself - that's the whole point of why his reasoning is more respectable in this one, it's for non-selfish reasons.
Z _
His motivations the first was just as reasonable lol. Literally protecting his house from criminals who’d steal from his house
Michael Porter
Now that I’ve read this, I’m never looking at this movie the same again.
ladyfire44
He was also fighting for Mr. Duncan because he's a kind store owner who always donated the money that he makes to the children's hospital. To have Harry and Marv steal it just so they can hightail it to a foreign country was something Kevin wasn't tolerating.
Landblaster
When Kevin says “you can mess with a lot of things but you can’t mess with kids on Christmas” I always get a tingling feeling.
Sahil
I just did as I read your comment
Cata Pin
Same
Arcade Classics
thefatman69fude How is he a pervert? What logical thought came into your mind for you to say that?