As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Awhile ago I was watching an old rerun of the Ed Sullivan Show and Mason Williams, the composer of Classical Gas, was featured. As in most cases of my curiosity, I decided to "look him up" as I have an artistic interest in how God moves his children to create things which are so profound.
I have contacted other artists, and like all of you, when you write to famous people, they rarely if ever reply, unlike some popular girl who takes the time to honor people. So I contacted Mr. Williams and asked him how he created this masterpiece and he kindly sent me an explanation, which is a Word document as others have asked, and as he is getting older, he can not be wasting time with answering the same question.
Classical Gas
I will quote:
I wrote it in August 1967, after a wild, two - week gig in Las Vegas with The Smothers Brothers. I think Tom and I must have stayed awake for the entire two weeks.
I don’t think I took my shades off the whole time, except maybe to wash my face. When we finally left, I went home, slept for a couple of days, got up and then decided to spend the weekend alone with the guitar.
I had, for the most part, been concentrating on writing comedy material for The Smother Brothers Comedy Hour and had not touched the guitar for quite awhile, but that weekend I really enjoyed getting back into it. In the process of noodling around,
I worked out the basic ideas for the piece. I spent another couple of months polishing it up. I’d work on it in between writing comedy bits for the show. I didn’t have any big
plans for it at the time, I just sort of figured on it being a solo guitar piece to play at
parties when they passed the guitar around.
For most people the 1960's was not that hippie or liberal stuff, but was still the moral boundaries of America with the stirring life that all things could happen and were still possible. Yes the backdrop was nuclear with the Soviets and Vietnam, but there was Apollo and a man to walk on the moon as Star Trek told us we were all going to survive to the 23rd century. It was a joy to be alive in all of that freedom as in 1967 you could still order guns through the mail without background checks and in 1967, if you had 200 dollars you could live all summer and basically meet someone at a bar, go home and crash at their house and their Mom would be treating you like one of her own.
Mason Williams was the comic genius of the most biting satire, since Mark Twain. He is known for Classical Gas, but he was pure comedy and the author of Pat Paulsen the perpetual candidate for President, who in the most subtle actions would expose the fraud of all that was world politics.
I doubt Mason Williams would ever appreciate the things God Inspires me to and I doubt that even in the out of control FBI that he ever had a visit from the FBI, like a certain popular girl was entertaining Homeland Security, as Mr. Mason with Tom and Dick Smothers are liberals with a passion. The thing that holds the entire bag though for me is Mason Williams took the time to reply to me. That kind of chivalry is absent in this world now and I make a point of noting it, as I appreciate it, and it is so necessary to post history from the author of the moment, because would it not be wonderful to know what Bach or Shakespeare were doing when they compose Jesu of Man's Desiring or Hamlet?
Mason Williams work is every bit the beauty of Bach and he deserves like recognition in American and the world, as he was given a song which will endure always in it's beauty.
What a wonderful gift to those who actually heard Mr. Williams playing this song live as it is equal to Bach in his organ.
I end this with the full document so that people will understand in world where we are deluged with the ridiculous epitaphs of "greatest ever" that we have lived among someone who is the greatest of this age in composing and satire.
For the love of Classical Gas
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Classical Gas Write Up
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Classical Gas
,
I am happy to say, seems to have weathered the years fairly well. It
was released in February, 1968.
It bubbled under for about 3 or 4 months and then finally took of in the summer of 1968.
It reached its peak as a hit in August of 1968, as a #1 in Cashbox and a #2 in Billboard. It still receives a fair amount of airplay.
In 1988 Broadcast Music, Inc., (BMI) the music licensing organization that tracks air
play performances on radio and television, presented me 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 number one
all time instrumental composition for air play in BMI’s repertoire, replacing the previous
#1 tune, “The Theme From Moulin Rouge, ”by Michele LeGrande, released in 1953.
It has gone on to become somewhat of a utilitarian piece of music, associated with TV news
and sports, performed during half - time at football and basketball games by high - school
and college bands. It has also been used by a lot of people for their own creations, as
music for films, dance routines, body building competitions, etc.
I wrote it in August 1967, after a wild, two - week gig in Las Vegas with The Smothers Brothers. I think Tom and I must have stayed awake for the entire two weeks.
I don’t think I took my shades off the whole time, except maybe to wash my face. When
we finally left, I went home, slept for a couple of days, got up and then decided to spend
the weekend alone with the guitar.
I had, for the most part, been concentrating on writing comedy material for The Smother Brothers Comedy Hour and had not touched the guitar for quite awhile, but that
weekend I really enjoyed getting back into it. In the process of noodling around,
I worked out the basic ideas for the piece. I spent another couple of months polishing it
up. I’d work on it in between writing comedy bits for the show. I didn’t have any big
plans for it at the time, I just sort of figured on it being a solo guitar piece to play at
parties when they passed the guitar around.
In 1969 it won three Grammies for Best Instrumental Composition, Best Instrumental Performance, and Best Instrumental Arrangement, and is probably responsible for throwing me into the world of the orchestra, a unique opportunity and an
excellent challenge musically.
Its success has allowed me to play concerts with various orchestras.
It’s great to play Classical Gas with an orchestra, it’s a tune that they know
well from hearing it on the radio. So...they always play the hell out of it, because they know how it goes!
Mason Williams
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Bio Info:
Mason Williams emerged in the late 1960’s as a strong force in
television and music circles. In 1968 his unique composition for guitar and orchestra,
Classical Gas won three Grammy awards. That same year Mason also received an Emmy award for his work as a comedy writer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
However, because of the international recognition 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 Gaswas 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,” “Best Instrumental Orchestra
Arrangement” (Mike Post, arranger).
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 tune. 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.” This album went gold in 1991, and is now approaching platinum.
Most recently Mason has released an acoustic instrumental album of
Christmas/Holiday music titled A Gift of Song, featuring arrangements of traditional
carols and original compositions. In 1992 Vanguard released Music 1968-1971, a
compilation of cuts from his five Warner Bros. albums.
As a comedy writer, Mason has written more than 180 hours of network television
programming. Writing both music and comedy, Mason was a prime creative force for the
controversial The Smothers Brothers Comedy Houron CBS in the late 60’s. His
extensive repertoire in folk music gave him the background for many of Tom and Dick’s
comedy routines.
With co-writer Nancy Ames, he also composed the shows’ musical theme. He also
created and perpetrated the 1968 Pat Paulsen for President Campaign, the most elaborate
political satire in recent history. These shows have recently been seen as re-runs on the E!
Entertainment cable channel.
Other major personalities he has written television for include: Steve Martin,
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 he received his third
Emmy nomination as a comedy writer for his work onThe Smothers Brothers 20th
Reunion Special (CBS).
Mason has also written and produced over a dozen books of prose, poetry, and
music including
The Mason Williams Reading Matter and Flavors(Doubleday) and The Mason Williams FCC Rapport(Liverite). A new 144 page music book, Classical Gas
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The Music of Mason Williams, has been published by Warner Brothers Publishing. It
contains (12) solo guitar and (6) duet original compositions by Mason.
As a conceptual artist, in the late 1960’s Mason produced a work titled
Bus, a life-sized (11'x37'), photographic poster of a Greyhound Bus that is in the permanent
collection of New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. He is also the creator of the
world’s largest sunflower. Originally intended as a short film, the sunflower concept was
conceived as a slow -motionaerial ballet in which an old biplane skywrites (“draws”), the
stem and leaves of a sunflower in the sky beneath the sun, the sun thereby becoming the
blossom of the flower.
In addition to his Of Time & Rivers Flowing concerts, his Concert for Bluegrass B
and and Orchestra, also titled Symphonic Bluegrass, has been performed with over 40
symphony orchestras including Denver, Kansas City, New Orleans, Oklahoma City,
Louisville and Edmonton, and other cities.
Most recently, 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.
