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Celebrating 30 years of being a John Williams fan and collector


Sandor

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5 minutes ago, Jay said:

Oh wow, that's cool!

My first soundtrack purchase was the 1993 Star Wars box set, which I got in 1994, so I guess my 30th anniversary is two years away!

 

My first soundtrack was the Polydor release of Star Wars followed by Return of the Jedi. It was the Gerhardt re-recording of The Empire Strikes Back however that turned me into a fan. It is -until this day- one of my favorite albums. 

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I think most of my first handful of soundtrack purchases were all Star Wars and Indiana Jones related - the OSTS to SW, TESB, and ROTJ, the OSTS to Raiders, Doom, and Crusade, the Gerhardt TESB and ROTJ, the ‎Varujan Kojian Star Wars trilogy.... I'd guess something Star Wars related was many people's first foray into enjoying scores on their own outside the films!

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7 minutes ago, Jay said:

I think most of my first handful of soundtrack purchases were all Star Wars and Indiana Jones related - the OSTS to SW, TESB, and ROTJ, the OSTS to Raiders, Doom, and Crusade, the Gerhardt TESB and ROTJ, the ‎Varujan Kojian Star Wars trilogy.... I'd guess something Star Wars related was many people's first foray into enjoying scores on their own outside the films!

 

True! I was collecting the soundtracks as a Star Wars fan and listening to the music as a stand-alone experience made me fall in love with the work and artistry of John Williams. 

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8 minutes ago, lairdo said:

 

Thanks, @Sandor, for kicking off the thread. And congrats on 30 years! Your collection looks amazing.

 

For sure my family had Fiddler on the Roof - cannot remember if that was ours or my grandparents' - but we had it and I played it. Of course, my awareness of John Williams was zilch as a 4-year old. I definitely saw Poseidon Adventure in the theater at a friend's birthday party when I was 5 (although I probably spent 33% of it in the lobby scared out of my mind). So, Star Wars in 1977 would be where I started collecting John Williams with the 8-Track Cassette version.

 

My first JW LP was Superman, given to us as part of a charity screening for my cousin's school, which was held at Warner Bros. What a glorious Saturday morning that was. It was the first movie I ever saw that started without previews (given it was at the studio theater). 2+ hours later, I believed a man could fly. We then had lunch in Hollywood on the way back from Burbank and ran into my school friend Tony Hooper. He had a Superman pin which he gave to me (and I still have) - he had just seen the movie at a screening as well. (I met his dad, Tobe, too, but I did not know he was a film director let alone would be making Poltergeist in a few years.)

 

Probably I had the LA Phil Star Wars-CE3K recording around then and the Gerhardt suites too.

 

My real active collecting came in 1980. For my Bar Mitzvah, family friends gave me a record/cassette/radio all-in-one unit with speakers. These were promptly wired all the way around my room along the ceiling and the speakers mounted high in my room. Those speakers are still there! Along with the hardware, I was also given a $100 gift certificate to Warehouse Records. The Empire Strikes Back was amongst the albums I got that day. I think I bought Jaws as well. 

 

So, how long have been at this? I guess you can round up to 50 years if you go back to Fiddler, but really I would say 45 years given that I actively lobbied my parents to buy that 8-track of Star Wars. And then to play it endlessly in the car.

 

Thanks for sharing! 

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Wow that’s pretty awesome! I think my first JW purchase came around 2018. That’s about a year after I graduated from college and finally had some money to spend on the things I loved. I’ve collected 61 releases since then and attended one concert. 

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I bought (or, more likely, asked my mum to buy for me) the Feank Barber NPO recording of Star Wars, CE3K and ET on cassette from, I’m guessing, 1982 or 83, so I must be on my 40th anniversary. I notice the vinyl of that release next to your ET vinyil, @Sandor!

 

I didn’t build on this purchase, though, until I bought the Polydor SW and ROTJ on CD in late 1981. ESB was basically unavailable in the UK until the 93 box set. Likewise most of the Indy scores.

 

Mark

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My first JW album was the Utah Symphony Star Wars Trilogy.  I think I bought it in 1992, along with a compilation of music from the first four ST films.  So, I guess I am 30 years into this as well--that is crazy.  Thank you for triggering my memory.  It was crazy over the next several years realizing that JW composed so much of the music that I had like during my early childhood.  Pre-internet days were different.  

 

I still remember a day from my junior year in high school.  I was in band, and we had finished our spring concert.  So, basically, we screwed around for the last week of the semester.  The band director disliked me (which in retrospect is all on me).  Anyway, I brought that CD to school and the band room had a really nice audio system with a CD player.  I was blasting SW through it.  The band director immediately came out of his office, walked over to the player, and just as I was expected him to turn it off and reprimand me, he adjusted the equalizer to better bring out the bass.  Great memory.   

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Amazing! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

 

I like how you’ve arranged them (compilations, soundtracks, re-recordings - and all chronological (more or less) from what I can see)!

 

I bought John Williams Conducts John Williams: The Star Wars Trilogy (The Skywalker Symphony Orchestra) in London in 1993. So I guess my 30th is coming up next year! :)

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10 minutes ago, rough cut said:

Amazing! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

 

I like how you’ve arranged them (compilations, soundtracks, re-recordings - and all chronological (more or less) from what I can see)!

 

I bought John Williams Conducts John Williams: The Star Wars Trilogy (The Skywalker Symphony Orchestra) in London in 1993. So I guess my 30th is coming up next year! :)

 

Thank you! I tried to arrange them chronologically, but I may have misplaced some pre-Jaws era. 

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Phenomenal collection, @Sandor! I couldn't help notice that lovely Annie Leibovitz photo of JW sitting on a stool in a scoring stage -- what issue of Vanity Fair was that, if you don't mind my asking? I'd like to try to track that down.

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1 hour ago, Bayesian said:

Phenomenal collection, @Sandor! I couldn't help notice that lovely Annie Leibovitz photo of JW sitting on a stool in a scoring stage -- what issue of Vanity Fair was that, if you don't mind my asking? I'd like to try to track that down.


Thank you!

 

I will try to find out in what issue it was published.

 

The picture was taken January 2001 and has Spielberg captured as well.

 

https://ru.pinterest.com/pin/dynamic-duo-stephen-spielberg-left-and-john-williams-right-photographed-at-sony-pictures-stud--418553359111606844/

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12 minutes ago, Sandor said:

I feel like it’d have to be an issue from a few months later, as the photo was taken in January ‘01 but it would take several weeks to fit it into the editorial content of an issue and then get it printed.
 

No need to prioritize that for me or anything! It’s enjoyment enough to see a fellow JW connoisseur and read about how this great man accompanied your life for 3 decades now and counting.

On 28/8/2022 at 11:55 AM, lairdo said:

 

Thanks, @Sandor, for kicking off the thread. And congrats on 30 years! Your collection looks amazing.

 

For sure my family had Fiddler on the Roof - cannot remember if that was ours or my grandparents' - but we had it and I played it. Of course, my awareness of John Williams was zilch as a 4-year old. I definitely saw Poseidon Adventure in the theater at a friend's birthday party when I was 5 (although I probably spent 33% of it in the lobby scared out of my mind). So, Star Wars in 1977 would be where I started collecting John Williams with the 8-Track Cassette version.

 

My first JW LP was Superman, given to us as part of a charity screening for my cousin's school, which was held at Warner Bros. What a glorious Saturday morning that was. It was the first movie I ever saw that started without previews (given it was at the studio theater). 2+ hours later, I believed a man could fly. We then had lunch in Hollywood on the way back from Burbank and ran into my school friend Tony Hooper. He had a Superman pin which he gave to me (and I still have) - he had just seen the movie at a screening as well. (I met his dad, Tobe, too, but I did not know he was a film director let alone would be making Poltergeist in a few years.)

 

Probably I had the LA Phil Star Wars-CE3K recording around then and the Gerhardt suites too.

 

My real active collecting came in 1980. For my Bar Mitzvah, family friends gave me a record/cassette/radio all-in-one unit with speakers. These were promptly wired all the way around my room along the ceiling and the speakers mounted high in my room. Those speakers are still there! Along with the hardware, I was also given a $100 gift certificate to Warehouse Records. The Empire Strikes Back was amongst the albums I got that day. I think I bought Jaws as well. 

 

So, how long have been at this? I guess you can round up to 50 years if you go back to Fiddler, but really I would say 45 years given that I actively lobbied my parents to buy that 8-track of Star Wars. And then to play it endlessly in the car.

@lairdo, I loved your story too! Pretty fun how your collection habit started literally in the crucible of Hollywood moviemaking—not many folks are likely ever to be able to say that!

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  • 1 year later...

1. How did you steal my collection?!

2. Congrats on your 30th Anniversary! (now 31st)

3. My first soundtrack CD purchase was Sony Classical’s “John Williams Conducts John Williams: The Star Wars Trilogy”. And 1993 was the year I bought it. It could mean that that point in time inherently contains some sort of cosmic significance. Almost as if it were the temporal junction point for the entire space-time continuum. On the other hand, it could just be an amazing coincidence.

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On 22/12/2023 at 8:07 PM, Martinland said:

Very nice thread, this! <3

 

In addition to the Anthology and Close Encounters ads and various German ones I also have this in my Williams binder that I have been maintaining for more than 30 years now and that some of you saw when you added one of the last pages with all your autographs on the Milano programme (<3):

 

20231222_220210.jpg

 

P.S.: Oh my, this belongs in the Star Wars Anthology thread - I just duplicated it there, sorry, too much seasonal beverages ;)


I loved seeing that in Milan.  Sometime, give me two hours, a nice drink, my reading glasses and a comfy chair to really look at it!

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I have been at this a long, long time, going back to the 1970s, but I have to say that 2023 has turned out to be the best year of collecting, thanks to all of the new archival releases.  And it certainly ended in the most spectacular fashion with the releases of HOOK, HEIDI, and JANE EYRE.  Wow!

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15 hours ago, GlastoEls said:

I loved seeing that in Milan.  Sometime, give me two hours, a nice drink, my reading glasses and a comfy chair to really look at it!

If you wish for that I might do this ... heavy hand luggage though. ;)

 

I very much enjoyed meeting (both of) you in London, finally.

 

9 hours ago, Dr. Know said:

I have been at this a long, long time, going back to the 1970s

:eek2:

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Thank you for this post, Sandor. Time flies like an arrow, and it's about 30 years for myself after seeing "Born on the 4th of July" in cinema and falling in love with the wonderful Trumpet Solo and String Sound. Shortly after I got a copy of Star Wars on Tape and realized that this was the same composer. The journey started from there, living in a small town in Austria without an adequat CD-shop for Film Music, and - of course - no internet. About 1 - 2 years later I went to Paris with some friends and visited the "Virgin Megastore" at the Champs-Elysees. I was in heaven :drool: I spent too much money there (for me beeing about 16 years old) and took about 10 CDs home by train... Since then, I saw JW live in Tanglewood in 2003 and in Vienna in 2020 and could not imagine a life without the music of this genius.

 

On 28/08/2022 at 10:34 PM, Bespin said:

(trying to calculate how many years)

 

I NEED ANOTHER DRINK.

 

OH WHAT DID I SAW???

 

:crymore::crymore::crymore:

 

image.png

 

BTW, not sure if I got this right... Is there anything special about "Goodbye, Mr. Chips"?

 

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Beautiful photos, congratulations!

46 years of collecting John Williams here. First purchase: Star Wars single in the fall of 77 when the film was released in France. Then the double LP at Xmas. It’s been quite a ride since. This man has really brightened our lives, hasn’t he?

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