Mason Williams
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Mason Douglas Williams (b. August 24, 1938 in Abilene, Texas) is an American guitarist and composer, best known for his popular guitar instrumental "Classical Gas". He is also a multiple Emmy award winning comedy writer, known for his writing on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, and Saturday Night Live. He is also an eclectic poet and lyricist, with several published books to his credit.
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[edit] Career
[edit] Music
Mason Williams emerged in the late 1960s as a strong force in television and music circles. In 1968 he won two Grammy awards for his unique composition for guitar, Classical Gas. That same year he also won an Emmy award for his work as a comedy writer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
In 1970, Mason made a memorable television appearance on a variety show, "Just Friends", which reunited regulars of the The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. To create a visual element for his performance, he used a special glass guitar built for him by Billy Cheatwood and a propdesigner for the ABC television network. It was a playable classical guitar made from plexiglass. For the performance, Mason filled the guitar with water and added a couple of gold fish. He then used the glass guitar to finger-sync his hit version of Classical Gas.
Mason is perhaps most widely known as a composer and recording artist. He has recorded more than a dozen albums, five on the Warner Bros. label (The Mason Williams Phonograph Record, The Mason Williams Ear Show, Music, Handmade, and Sharepickers). "Classical Gas" was released as a single from The Mason Williams Phonograph Record in 1968. "Classical Gas" won three Grammys that year for "Best Instrumental (theme) Composition", "Best Instrumental (theme) Performance", and "Best Instrumental Orchestra Arrangement" (Mike Post, arranger). As a writer he wrote songs for the The Kingston Trio.
In 1987, Mason teamed up with Mannheim Steamroller, of Fresh Aire fame, to release a new album on the American Gramaphone label. The album, titled Classical Gas, includes a remake of his 1968 Grammy award winning song. Another cut from this album, "Country Idyll", was a 1988 nominee for a Grammy in the Country Music category for "Best Instrumental Performance by a Soloist, Group or Orchestra". The album went gold in 1991. Mason's glass guitar appears on the cover of this album.
Mason has released (on the Real Music label) an acoustic instrumental album of Christmas/holiday music album titled A Gift of Song, featuring arrangements of traditional carols and original compositions. In 1992 the Vanguard label released Music 1968–1971, a compilation of cuts from his five Warner Bros. albums recorded in the late '60s and 'early 70s.
In the last few years Mason has concentrated on a variety of programs for his concert appearances. His Concert For Bluegrass Band And Orchestra, also titled Symphonic Bluegrass, has been performed with over 40 symphonies including such major orchestras as Denver, Kansas City, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Louisville, and Edmonton.
Mason has released an album of the same title on his own Skookum label containing 14 of the approximately 35 songs performed in the concert. In 1993 the title cut from this album was used as the sound track for a ninety-second PSA spot created by The American Rivers Council on the home video release of Robert Redford's film A River Runs Through It. The same spot will also be on the 1995 home video release of The River Wild filmed in Oregon.
In conjunction with the release of his A Gift of Song Christmas CD in 1992, Mason has added a Holiday Concert Program to his repertoire, featuring music from the album as well as other traditional music of the season. In 1994, he played six sold-out concerts with the Oregon Symphony in Portland, Oregon.
1995, '96, '97 and '98 were sprinkled with more performances of all four of Mason's concerts. A highlight of '95 was to be invited to play for Oregon governor John Kitzhaber's inauguration. In 1996 Mason received an honorary Doctorate of Music from his alma mater, Oklahoma City University.
In 1998, Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI), the music licensing organization that tracks air play performances on radio and television, presented Mason with a Special Citation of Achievement in recognition of the great national and international popularity of "Classical Gas". It has logged over three million broadcast performances to become the all-time number-one instrumental composition for air play in BMI's repertoire, replacing the previous #1 tune, "The Theme From Moulin Rouge" by Michel Legrande, released in 1953.
In 1999, Mason played again for the governor of Oregon's second inauguration. In February, Mason's "Bus" art piece was included in the Norton Simon Museum exhibition "Radical Past", in Pasadena, California. In the spring he played his Of Time & Rivers Flowing concert with the Oregon Children's Choral Festival, a two-day event involving 3,000 elementary school children singing water and rivers songs with Mason and his band. Mason received the Distinguished Service Award from the University of Oregon in honor of his Contribution to Oregon's Arts.
In the fall of '99 he and the Bluegrass Band played for Byron Berline's Oklahoma International Bluegrass Festival in Guthrie, Oklahoma with the Oklahoma City Symphony Orchestra, an outdoor event that, at 47°F (8°C), gave a new meaning to term "bluegrass".
He has also written music for soundtracks of movies including The Story of Us, Cheaper by the Dozen, The Dish, The Heidi Chronicles, and Heartbreakers. His compositions have been the backdrop for the television series The Sopranos as well.
In 2003, he released an EP titled Music for the Epicurean Harkener and was again nominated for a Grammy in 2004 for best instrumental album. He continues to write and record and recently released an album with UK guitarist Zoe McCulloch called Electrical Gas in 2005.
It appeared that Mason Williams was heading for retirement, but in 2006 he once again started performing publicly. In June he performed to his 50th high school reunion at Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City. He continued his performances with his friends, Art Maddox, Mark Schneider, Thom Bergeron and Dennis Caffey. They performed at concerts in Eugene and Springfield, and at the opening gala at the Richard E. Wildish Community Theater. He also made special guest appearances in September with many other guitarists at Primal Twang in San Diego, California, and with Craig Einhorn and The Umpqua Symphony Orchestra in Roseburg, Oregon. In January 2007, He was reunited with longtime friend and artist Edward Ruscha performing at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. In October 2007, he was inducted into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame[1]and co-headlined a concert with Everclear and also with Paul Revere and the Raiders.
[edit] Comedy
Like many writer-performers, Mason Williams was also a talented stand-up comedian. Unlike the standard comedy acts of the 1960s, however, Williams set most of his comic ideas to music, and sang or recited the jokes in lyric form, with guitar accompaniment. In 1964 Vee Jay Records released the album Them Poems, on which Williams entertains a live audience with "them poems about them people," covering such varied topics as "Them Moose Goosers," "Them Sand Pickers," and "Them Surf Serfs." A typical "them poem" was "Them Banjo Pickers," which began: "Them banjo pickers! Mighty funny ways. Same damn song for three or four days!" Them Poems was reissued in 1969 (on the heels of "Classical Gas") as The Mason Williams Listening Matter.
As a comedy writer, Mason has written for more than 150 hours of network television programming. Writing both music and comedy, Mason was a prime creative force for CBS' controversial Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. His extensive repertoire in folk music gave him the background for many of Tom and Dick Smothers' comedy routines, and with co-writer Nancy Ames, he also composed the shows' musical theme. He also created and perpetuated the 1968 "Pat Paulsen for President" campaign, an elaborate political satire. Mason's longest running contribution to date is the launching of the career of Steve Martin. Martin was initially hired by Williams as a writer on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, for which his contributions were initially paid out of Williams' own pocket.
Other major television personalities he has written for include Steve Martin (a writing colleague on "Smothers Brothers"), Andy Williams, Glen Campbell, Dinah Shore, Roger Miller, and Petula Clark. In 1980 Mason was head writer for NBC's Saturday Night Live. In 1988 Mason received his third Emmy nomination as a comedy writer for his work on The Smothers Brothers 20th Reunion Special (CBS). According to his book The Mason Williams FCC Rapport, Williams also credits himself with the first concept of a VJ and MTV at large. His concept included visual representations of the music and a video host announcing each piece of music on the air. CBS executives scoffed at his idea at the time. However, this didn't stop him from trying out his idea on the air as his composition Classical Gas was played on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour against a backdrop of 2,000 renaissance art pieces, which by effect made the composition one of the first music videos.
In February 2000, Mason participated in the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado. The Festival's 6th annual show honored The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and its unique contribution to television. Mason performed a concert with Tom and Dick, and again on a late night show with Catherine O'Hara, Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Steve Martin, Robin Williams, Marc Shaiman, and many newcomers to the world of comedy.
[edit] Environmentalism
After becoming involved in protests against a Willamette River hydroelectric power project, Williams began to think of how the river itself should have a voice in its fate, and eventually collected over 400 songs about rivers, which he crafted into his program Of Time and Rivers Flowing.[2] A chronological "river" of music and time, it encompasses the realms of classical, folk, minstrel, gospel, jazz, country, pop, and contemporary rock.[citation needed] Mason has performed the program for benefits, conferences, and in concert. A recent event of note was the 25th anniversary celebration of American Rivers in Washington, D.C., where Vice President Al Gore was the principal speaker.[citation needed]
[edit] Discography
From masonwilliams-online.com and Yahoo's "Mason Williams: Discography".
| July 14, 1960 | Little Billy Blue Shoes/Run Come See |
| August 1960 | Folk Music as Heard at The Gourd |
| April 1961 | Songs of the Blue and Grey ; recorded by The Wayfarers Trio |
| April 30, 1962 | Away All Boats |
| 1963 | The Big Hootenanny |
| March 12, 1963 | I Am an American |
| August 26, 1963 | More Hootenany |
| Unknown[3] | Feudin' Banjos |
| 1963 | The Twelve-String Story Vol. I |
| 1963 | The Twelve-String Story Vol. II |
| October 1963 | The Banjo Story |
| October 29, 1963 | Folk Baroque |
| 2 April 1964 | 5-String Banjo Greats |
| 1964 | Them Poems |
| December 24, 1965 | Introducing Jayne Heather |
| April 1965 | Tour de Farce (The Smothers Brothers) |
| April 22, 1966 | Love Are Wine/The Exciting Accident |
| 1966 | The Smothers Brothers Play It Straight |
| 1968 | Classical Gas/Baroque-a-Nova |
| February 1968 | The Mason Williams Phonograph Record |
| August 10, 1968 | Classical Gas/Long Time Blues |
| November 1968 | The Mason Williams Ear Show |
| 1968 | Saturday Night at the World/One-Minute Commercial |
| March 13, 1969 | Music |
| March 1969 | Greensleeves/$13 Stella |
| 1969 | Jennifer |
| March 1969 | The Mason Williams Listening Matter (Them Poems) |
| March 10, 1970 | Handmade |
| 1970 | José's Piece |
| 1 January 1971 | Improved |
| October 1971 | Sharepickers |
| 1971 | Train Ride in G/Here I Am Again |
| November 1978 | Fresh Fish |
| December 1984 | Of Time and Rivers Flowing |
| October 22, 1987 | Classical Gas — Mason Williams and Mannheim Steamroller |
| July 13, 1992 | Music 1968 – 1972 |
| September 18, 1992 | A Gift of Song |
| 1994 | Rock Instrumental Classics, Vol. 2: The Sixties |
| September 1995 | Fiddle and a Song |
| Unknown | 1968 Billboard Top Pop Hits (Rhino) (features "Classical Gas") |
| December 20, 1995 | 1995 Sony Disc Manufacturing Holiday Choir |
| 9 April 1996 | Cascadia (1996 Oregon Governor's Arts Awards) |
| May 17, 1996 | Of Time and Rivers Flowing (re-released) |
| December 25, 2003 | Music for the Epicurean Harkener (EP) |
| September 27, 2005 | Electrical Gas — Mason Williams and Zoe McCulloch |
| September 30, 2006 | Classical Gas - Mason Williams, Craig Einhorn, Online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=078N20Zxx1k |
| December 1, 2006 | Classical Gas - Mason Williams at the Wildish Theater, Online at |
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ [ http://www.omhof.org/honorees.html Oregon Music Hall of Fame Honorees]
- ^ Williams, Mason (May 1996). "Of Time and Rivers Flowing Concert History". MasonWilliams-Online.com. Retrieved on 2006-10-28.
- ^ The release date of Feudin' Banjos is unknown. Its chronological position in the list is estimated from context. The Everest 7105 album was issued in 1973
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[edit] External links
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