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I wanted to separate this out from the Goldsmith Odyssey Podcast thread, because I'm sure many here don't listen to that show. This board's own Yavar Moradi has proven himself to be a natural interviewer, exceeding even many professionals in geniality, preparation, and the ability to flow with the conversational directions. I thought that before I recently joined the podcast team, and I still think it.
Yavar has done six interviews with movie score professionals since last August, all good, yet here he may have met his match in amiability and elucidation. Robert is instantly good-natured, consistently informative, and he's an engaging raconteur to boot. It's really great listen, and they cover more than Goldsmith, so I wanted to point to it for the broader community here.
This is part one, with a second part due out in a week or so:
http://goldsmithodyssey.buzzsprout.com/159614/1301242-odyssey-interviews-robert-townson-part-1
TIME PASSES!
Part two!
http://goldsmithodyssey.buzzsprout.com/159614/1361503-odyssey-interviews-robert-townson-part-2
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I just want to second Mr. Lichty's comments about Yavar and his terrific interviews. I was late to the Goldsmith Odyssey party and am still making my way through the proper chronology of episodes, but I always listen to the one-off interviews as soon as they're made available. The guests have all been wonderful, but Yavar deserves special praise for all of the reasons Mr. Lichty mentions above.
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Awww, guys, I'm blushing! Thanks for the kind words, David/Jonathan/Mike!
Yavar has done six interviews with movie score professionals since last August, all good, yet here he may have met his match in amiability and elucidation.
I'd say I more than met my match already in David Newman!  (Or does dropping an F-bomb here and there reduce the amiability factor for ya?)
I just want to second Mr. Lichty's comments about Yavar and his terrific interviews. I was late to the Goldsmith Odyssey party and am still making my way through the proper chronology of episodes, but I always listen to the one-off interviews as soon as they're made available. The guests have all been wonderful, but Yavar deserves special praise for all of the reasons Mr. Lichty mentions above.
I still want to hear about your progress (and anyone else's, who's reading) through our early episodes even though they are from a while ago, Jonathan! Yeah, the interviews can be easily appreciated without worrying about chronology. I feel going chronologically (as we do ourselves as much as possible) through Jerry's oeuvre makes the most sense though, especially since we sometimes reference previous eps. But I've revisited some of those older ones myself recently (including our first with David as a guest: Man on the Beach -- tons of fun!) and I'd love to go back through memory lane if you feel like sharing your thoughts on any of those.
Yavar
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Does Townson talk about anything other than Goldsmith?
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Yes — in this first part alone he also discusses Elmer, Basil, Cliff, Miklos, Alex, Georges, Joel (McNeely not Goldsmith), and others.
Yavar
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Yes — in this first part alone he also discusses Elmer, Basil, Cliff, Miklos, Alex, Georges, Joel (McNeely not Goldsmith), and others.
Yavar
I'll.try to.give it a listen!
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Best interview from Yavar to date, no doubt. I really mean it.
I've also learned some new things, so thanks a lot for that!
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I worked with Bob for 5 years at Varèse Sarabande Records and got to know him very much and how he worked and a lot more. I'm now in chapter 4 of my book about my experience. Take a while to write, but hope people enjoy it.
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Yavar... just finished listening to part 1 and it was great. I love all the behind the scenes tidbits but the best was learning that the music to the main title to Illustrated Man was written when Goldsmith was just 19 years old! His genius was blossoming early!
Yeah that kinda blew my mind, too! The earliest piece of Goldsmith music we thought we'd been able to find was "We Gather Together" -- a short (less than 4 minutes) radio score from 1951. You can hear that as a bonus at the end of our Fifties Roundup episode:
http://goldsmithodyssey.buzzsprout.com/159614/735335-episode-8-fifties-roundup
But Robert has totally beaten our discovery with the revelation that the brilliant main theme from The Illustrated Man was written by Jerry when he was a teenager. Just, wow.
Great interview. So many interesting stories.
I also particularly like your attention to detail when selecting the clips. If a particular recording of a score is mentioned you play that exact recording (instead as for example just playing the Love Theme from Conan to illustrate the talk, you play the Ubeda concert performance that was being discussed).
Fantastic work Yavar.
Actually that element is mostly Jens's fantastic work as editor. Most of the music selections were done by him in his initial draft without any input -- including his little Airplane joke, which he was apparently afraid Bob or I would tell him to remove! I remember Bob suggested he switch the Tora! Tora! Tora! cue he'd picked, and add in Out of Africa and some Final Conflict early on (I think "The Hunt" is a great way to launch into his association with Jerry), and I made the suggestions to include Damnation Alley, and a little bit of Logan's Run under Bob's initial story of discovering (slightly) earlier Goldsmith thanks to his friend's LP. Jens executed our requests superbly, and everything else was already in place.
It’s also interesting to see the different perspective from the record producer, comparing the podcasts of Lukas Kendall who opted to, in principle, not involve the composers on the releases to have more freedom to do the more comprehensive release possible (which is great as I’m a completist) to producers like Townson who worked closely with the composer on preparing the album and probably was not much in position to oppose composer’s decision on selection of material. It’s similar to the Douglass Fake relationship with Chris Young - which resulted in wonderful albums (but sometimes lacking come great cues).
It sounds to me like Bob tended to be more constrained by re-use fees (the story shared here about allocating time to fit The Hijacking on the AFO album, for example) than he was by Jerry, at all. There was a mostly-redundant little bit of conversation that got cut from the final draft, where Bob confirmed that he released every cue from Lionheart on his two volumes (the second was not an afterthought, but always planned to follow the first apparently). Jerry did not offer a single objection to him doing this, which surprised me! So maybe it depended on the score, or maybe he was just more willing to let Bob release whatever he was able to afford.
Best interview from Yavar to date, no doubt. I really mean it.
I've also learned some new things, so thanks a lot for that!
Oh wow -- you're welcome, and thank you for the compliment. I do try to keep improving, with these. But mostly I just try to have a natural conversation and get people's memories of Jerry down for posterity.
Yavar
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Agreed. Very entertaining. Nice interviewing, Yavar!
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I worked with Bob for 5 years at Varèse Sarabande Records and got to know him very much and how he worked and a lot more. I'm now in chapter 4 of my book about my experience. Take a while to write, but hope people enjoy it.
Sounds great.
Hope you finish it before GRRM finishes GOT!
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Posted: |
Jun 28, 2019 - 8:49 PM
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By: |
RonBurbella
(Member)
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I wasn't sure what to expect, a slow-moving snooze-fest or a sizzling, hang-on-every-word extravaganza.
I was greatly impressed by Yavar's spot-on interviewing. And Jens' tight editing really made it move right along.
Once in a while, during some information that I was familiar with, I would focus away and try to "multi-task" with some other minor chores for a few seconds....and then I would miss the beginning of some new topic and say "WHAT did he say?" to myself and have to rewind back and listen with refocused attention.
REALLY nice job, guys. I've only met Robert Townson once, in New York City at Radio City Music Hall at the memorably fabulous 2007 Ennio Morricone concert. I was there with my wife and daughter and saw him waaaay up front in the really exclusive seats. What the hell, I said to myself, I'll probably never get this chance again. And I'm old enough to be his father! I excused myself, walked right up to him, shook his hand, thanked him for his work, got his autograph, and took a picture with him. I'm pretty sure that he doesn't remember the episode, but I always will. Then I had to run back to my seat because the concert was about to start. Robert was quite patient and a real gentleman. Bravo all around!
Ron Burbella
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Very nice, Yavar. Any advance notice on what part II may bring? Maybe a question or two about the debacle that was The Thorn Birds CD set??
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