John Williams at 80

"One of the great fallacies about the classical guitar is that it's difficult to find literature. It's not. People are just looking for the wrong things. They're looking for the great repertory the piano and the violin have. The guitar doesn't have that literature, and there's nothing that can be done about it. But that lack is one of the guitar's great strengths, because by virtue of its historical roots everywhere, it is much more easily adaptable to the music that's happening around us than any other instrument. Think about it; whether it's film music, jazz, pop, rock, Bach, Albeniz or Britten, the guitar belongs there in spirit. The repertory is there for those willing to look around."

The Australian-born guitar virtuoso John Williams has certainly 'looked around' and further afield to places few others have trodden, breaking the traditional mould of the classical guitar established by his one-time mentor Andrés Segovia, who famously dubbed Williams 'prince of the guitar' when the 17-year-old boy made his Wigmore Hall debut in 1958.

John's reputation was built on his dazzling technique, powerful, clean sound and the fact he never buzzed a string or flubbed a note. Some said his playing could be clinical, but his legacy worldwide is enormous.

In the 1960s Williams voraciously explored the traditional Segovian guitar repertoire, expanding it too, with a plethora of contemporary chamber music and newly commissioned works, transcriptions and arrangements.

Then came his excursions into jazz and popular music partnering with Cleo Laine and John Dankworth, the Greek soprano Maria Farandouri, Paco Pena and the exiled Chilean ensemble Inti-Illimani. He reached millions hitting the charts when he played the main theme to the Oscar-winning movie The Deer Hunter in 1978.

And then, around the same time, came the ultimate outrage for Segovia, when Williams took up the electric guitar and formed his rock band Sky, whilst still maintaining his position as Segovia's heir apparent.

His diverse and productive musical relationships are reflected in an astoundingly voluminous and broad discography, now spanning more than five decades. "Looking back, the variety hasn't really been a conscious thing, some sort of desperate need to do something different, and it isn't crossover. I hate all that. It's just that there's always been so much to do, so many wonderful opportunities. There's a lovely social aspect to it, too. Whenever you get involved in such a communal project, you meet a lot of interesting people."

A few years ago John announced his retirement from touring but he still plays every day and is still bringing out new recordings on his own label JCW Recordings.

In his latest release he nostalgically plays his own solo arrangement of Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in D, RV 230, made a long time ago. As he describes, he'd first heard it "in Bach's arrangement for solo harpsichord played by the Colombian harpsichordist Rafael Puyana. It has remained one of my favourite pieces; so well expressed by the guitar's noble and lyrical qualities."

I must say I'm finding it difficult to believe John is celebrating his eightieth birthday this month. Despite his monolithic achievements garnered over more than five decades on the world stage and in the studio, he continues to project a laidback, boyish charm belying his years, courtesy perhaps of his early bohemian family life in Melbourne which was the antithesis of that endured by most hot-housed prodigies.

I imagine he'll be celebrating his birthday quietly with family and friends. Despite his enormous fan base he's not one for fuss and has always eschewed the trappings of celebrity. "At times I am dismissive and remote. I'm not very indulgent when it comes to fans. I don't see the need for signed photos."

One of John's many grateful students, Carlos Bonell, paid tribute this week, saying "John was an inspirational teacher. Studying, touring and recording with him in the first John Williams and Friends group – what more could I, in my early twenties, ask for? He was informal, ready to help with sorting out playing problems and with an acute ability to develop a musical idea until it was just as he wanted it. All this was often punctuated by a torrent of jokes, some good, some bad. How did he remember them all, packed into his memory with all that music? Happy Birthday John!"

The phrase 'prince of the guitar' may have plagued his early career but John Williams surely deserves to be dubbed 'king' of his instrument as he celebrates his 80th.

"I come from a free-thinking political family from Australia."

John's childhood as an only child growing up in Melbourne was stimulating to say the least. His first guitar teacher was his father, London-born Len Williams, a distinguished jazz and classical guitarist who was an evangelist for his instrument. He eventually founded the London Spanish Guitar Centre in 1952.

One of his students Sadie Bishop, who went on to start the guitar department in Canberra, recalled that Len was "the pioneer of the instrument in Melbourne - there was no [classical] guitar scene to speak of before Len arrived."

Len became popular in dancehalls and clubs around Melbourne and held the guitar chair of the ABC Dance Band, broadcasting regularly, though the job wasn't particularly lucrative.

When John was 4, his father gave him his first guitar. It's hard to believe now, but guitars were hard to come by in those days. Len found a small Martin in the end, building up the neck with a plastic wood filler, so it became more like a classical than a steel stringed instrument.

Len's teaching style was founded on the technique of Segovia. His idols were Segovia and Django Reinhardt, and their music was part of the soundtrack to John's early family life in Melbourne.

Len met John's mum, Melaan Ah Ket at a jazz club in Melbourne. They also shared fairly radical left-wing views and actively supported causes like foreign aid for China and workers' rights. One of their frequent haunts was Melbourne's Speakers Corner. John gained his own strong sense of social engagement from his parents.

John was taught by his father into his early teens and despite Segovia often being dubbed his most important teacher and his father's uncompromising and strict approach, his gratitude to his father has always been unstinting. "I think I learned the most about guitar from my father. He was a great teacher. He wanted me to make that beautiful Segovian sound and spent a lot of time on hand position and being relaxed. He also wanted no unnecessary hand movement. He taught about control of tone colour and that technique is not about speed, but is for control of dynamics.

"I continue to learn about music from other musicians: violinists, pianists, and other contemporaries. That is where I learned music, not from Segovia. My father was very strict with me, perhaps too strict, but I am really happy with the results." 

Len must surely have been happy too. Sadie Bishop once said, "For three weeks I was a better guitar player than John Williams, but then I was 32 and he was nine."

"A prince of the guitar has arrived in the musical world"

In 1952, in part because Len had personal ambitions beyond Melbourne and also because they wanted to give John the best opportunities, the family moved to London, sailing on the RMS Orontes of the Orient Line. Len had even taken an additional job as a hippo-keeper at Melbourne Zoo to fund the move!

In London, Len established the Spanish Guitar Centre, a successful school that also presented concerts and master classes by Segovia and others, which gradually helped build London into a centre of the guitar world.

Then in the Piccadilly Hotel, 11-year-old John played for Segovia who immediately recognized a rare talent.

Between 1953 and 1960 John worked with the Spanish master both in London (where he also pursued more general musical studies at the Royal College of Music) and every summer, at the Academia Musicale Chigiana Institute, in Siena, Italy, where his classmates included Zubin Mehta and Daniel Barenboim.

"Those summers in Siena were very important," he recalls, "because it wasn't just guitar. There was opera, orchestral music, chamber music; and when you're young and impressionable, and you have a lot of friends who play other instruments, you become influenced in different ways." He also met the Venezuelan virtuoso Alirio Diaz at the school, consequently developing an intense love of Venezuelan music.

When John made his professional debut at Wigmore Hall in 1958, the concert program included Segovia's now famous quote: "A prince of the guitar has arrived in the musical world. God has laid a finger on his brow, and it will not be long before his name becomes a byword in England and abroad, thus contributing to the spiritual domain of his race."

Those oft-quoted words haunted Williams during the early years of his career. His father's response gives us an idea of John's very grounded childhood. After the concert he said to friends in the local pub: "Touch his brow? You'd get far more response by kicking his f***ing arse!"

During this period John began touring widely whilst still studying at the Royal College but in the 1970s he pulled back, limiting himself to three weeks travel a year, much to his agent's chagrin. "I don’t like touring. I don't even tour in England." He did keep coming regularly to Australia though, in part as he puts it, "It was a sort of social/family thing as well."

"I have to say, with the benefit of hindsight, that I don't think he was a good teacher."

For years, many of his fans believed his few lessons with Segovia were pivotal to the success of his career. John famously denied this, announcing "I am critical of the legacy of Segovia's teaching. He was fantastic to me and a great inspiration to a whole generation but he was also a very difficult human being and he behaved in personal terms abominably toward me and my father." He recalled how Segovia made his students copy his every inflection, "undermining any sense of personal ownership of a piece."

In his biography Strings Attached, published in 2012, he called Segovia "'a musical snob' who wanted everyone to play the way he played." But added that there were many positive aspects to Segovia and his influence. "You couldn't help being influenced by him and his sound when you were as close to it as I was. But as time passed, I found my interpretive approach becoming more direct, more linear, whereas Segovia's was often shaped by the beautiful resonant qualities of his Hauser, which didn't suit either my personality or musical inclinations in either solo or chamber music."

Finally he added, ‘but we can’t change the fact that it all began with Segovia and his sound. We wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for him.”

"I will exploit that, not for my own ego, but for the guitar."

John Williams made his first classical recording in 1964. The bulk of his studio work was for CBS, now Sony Classical, but eventually he established his own label, JCW Recordings.

"There are two reasons why I released the recording myself. The main one is that, being mostly my own pieces, I didn't want the recording to be the victim of Sony or any other big recording company deleting it in a few years' time, which they do often, or of not having it distributed properly. I wanted to make sure that it was totally owned by me, so that I can then re-release it, and license it if necessary in different countries. I wanted to do it in my own way."

John is still the stand-bearer for his instrument. One of his admirers, guitarist Jason Vieaux whose first classical guitar recording was a Williams cassette sums it up: "He’s the man! I mean he's Michael Jordan to, really a lot, a lotta, lotta players. I mean, if John lived to 100 he could probably play and be playing just great."

Let's hope he does! Happy 80th birthday John.