The Legacy of John Williams

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Table Of Contents

• Film Details
• Music Credits
• Essential Discography
• Awards and Nominations
• Quotes and Commentary
• Videos
• Bibliography and References

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Film Details

Year: 1973
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Director/Producer: Mark Rydell
Writer: Darryl Ponicsan, based on his novel
Main Cast: James Caan, Marsha Mason, Eli Wallach, Kirk Calloway, Burt Young, Bruno Kirby, Allyn Ann McLerie
Genre: Drama – Romance

For synopsis and full cast and crew credits, visit the IMDb page

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Music Credits

Music Composed and Conducted by John Williams

“Wednesday Special” and “Nice To Be Around”
Music by John Williams
Lyrics and Vocals by Paul Williams

Harmonica Solos: Jean “Toots” Thielemans

Music Editor: Len Engel
Engineer: Joe Sidore

Recording Studio: 20th Century Fox Scoring Stage, Century City, California
Recording Dates: October 10, 17, 18 and 19, 1973

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Essential Discography

Original Soundtrack Album and Reissues

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Selected Re-recordings

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Awards and Nominations

Academy Awards
Nomination: Best Original Dramatic Score
Nomination: Best Original Song (“Nice To Be Around”)

Golden Globes
Nomination: Best Original Score

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Quotes and Commentary

The music for Cinderella Liberty presented special problems. It had to be simple like the earth, like Baggs, the sailor played with such natural dignity by James Caan. It had to have a sense of romance, sometimes thin and sometimes full, like Maggie, Baggs’ chipper little girlfriend, played to the quick by Marsha Mason. The music had to have the filmmaker’s point of view, one of irony, and his flow. And it had to include the composer’s vision.
Williams and Rydell brought in Paul Williams, probably the finest of the contemporary lyricists. With such hits to his credit as “We’ve Only Just Begun,” “Old Fashioned Love Song,” “Out in the Country,” “Rainy Days and Mondays,” and “Let Me Be The One,” no one can dispute his writing successes. He has also written for numerous motion pictures including The Getaway, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, and several television movies such as No Place to Run which contained the highly acclaimed composition “What Would They Say.”
John and Paul wrote two songs for the film. The love ballad, “Nice to Be Around,” is played superbly and in several incarnations by Toots Thielemans, Belgium’s proud and unique harmonica genius. This album will be a special pleasure for those who search unendingly and without luck for his old albums in dusty bins. Toots was perfect for the project, not just because he is a constantly self-renewing player, but also because he handles the harmonica as a singer handles his voice. At times Toots is even conversational with the instrument. No one knows how he does it. The ballad is beautifully, roughly sung on the album, as in the film, by lyricist Paul Williams.
The other song is “Wednesday Special.” As the love ballad goes with the film, so this song goes against it, and for the same reason: to affect. Wednesday Special occurs in the opening sequence sung with wooly cheerfulness by Paul Williams, saying “A little lovin; makes me feel all fresh inside…” Hearing this, we see a sore, lonely, disillusioned Baggs wandering around a dingy seaport. As “Nice To Be Around” goes for velvet, “Wednesday Special” goes for irony. And gets it. ¹
– Morgan Ames

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Rydell had used John Williams on his second feature film, The Reivers, an assignment that had earned the composer his first Oscar nomination for best original score (after earning adaptation nominations for Valley of the Dolls and Goodbye, Mr. Chips). Rydell also employed Williams on his next project, the John Wayne adventure The Cowboys. Williams had produced two seminal works of Americana in his scores for those films, but Cinderella Liberty‘s urban setting and subdued love story required a different approach. Williams collaborated with performer, songwriter and sometime actor Paul Williams, the writer behind the songs “We’ve Only Just Begun,” “Evergreen” and “Rainbow Connection.” Paul Williams wrote and performed lyrics for two themes written by John Williams–first, the rambunctious “Wednesday Special” song that opens the film, and “Nice to Be Around,” based on John Williams’ gentle, bluesy love theme.
John Williams has long been known for a certain kind of lush, classically-informed symphonic film score, so that it’s difficult to remember that some of his roots lay in jazz and big band music-that Williams was a popular jazz pianist and many of his earlier scores were for comedies, showcasing a quirky and often intimate style. While Williams had been writing symphonic music even in his work for television, it can be argued that his Oscar-nominated score to The Reivers was Williams’ “coming out” as a major league talent in film— part of his transition from “Johnny Williams” (the jazz pianist turned composer who kept busy writing scores for television shows like Lost in Space and The Time Tunnel along with frothy film comedies like Penelope and John Goldfarb, Please Come Home, or potboilers like Diamond Head or None But the Brave) to “John Williams.” In 1968 Williams was contributing music to Irwin Allen’s TV show Land of the Giants; in 1969 he was scoring Goodbye, Mr. Chips and The Reivers. Projects like Jane Eyre, The Cowboys and The Poseidon Adventure took Williams farther along the path that would lead him to the blockbuster scores for Jaws and Star Wars, films that would cement his reputation with a world audience. But the early Seventies also saw Williams demonstrating his versatility and range on quirky projects like Images, The Long Goodbye and The Sugarland Express. Cinderella Liberty falls into this latter category. The style is not symphonic but lies somewhere between lounge and blues. Toots Thielemans’ harmonica adds a home-cooked vibe that reflects the honest, moral simplicity of Caan’s character, while Williams’ sophisticated string arrangements and rhythm sections add the lounge sensibility that speaks to Mason’s background as a woman used to manipulating her male clients. The score is centered around Williams’ “Nice to Be Around” love theme, which bears up under repeated uses in the film and takes on the shape of a classic romantic melody. The “Wednesday Special” theme appears more sparsely but is associated with the budding friendship between Baggs and Doug. Otherwise, Williams created a number of pseudo-source cues for the streets and bars of Seattle, and the mix of score, source and songs makes Cinderella Liberty one of the composer’s most eclectic albums. That it works seamlessly with the film (both John and Paul Williams earned Oscar nominations) is yet another demonstration of Williams’ mastery of the form and a reminder that while his rich symphonic works may be the ones for which this legendary composer is best remembered, he has always been capable of delivering great film music in just about any style necessary.²
– Jeff Bond

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Videos

“Maggie and Baggs” scene from Cinderella Liberty (1973) | 20th Century Fox

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Toots Thielemans performs “Nice To Be Around” from Cinderella Liberty with John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra | PBS Evening at Pops, May 1980

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Anne-Sophie Mutter performs “Nice To Be Around” (for violin and orchestra) from Cinderella Liberty with John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra at the Tanglewood Music Center | August, 2019

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Paul Williams sings “Nice To be Around” from Cinderella Liberty – Original Soundtrack

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Bibliography and References

. Ames, Morgan – Cinderella Liberty – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack liner notes, 20th Century Records, 1973
. Bond, Jeff – Cinderella Liberty – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack liner notes, CD reissue, Intrada, 2008

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Footnotes

1. Cinderella Liberty – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack liner notes, 1973 ↩︎
2. Bond, Cinderella Liberty – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack liner notes CD Reissue, 2008 ↩︎

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