Letters from Lines and Spaces - Paperback

by John Wilson (Author), Terry Johns (Author)

A colourful, humorous, and sometimes perplexing picture of British musical life, written by a musician with a distinguished career that spans forty five years in classical and popular music, recalling his early experiences in orchestras with Benjamin Britten, Leopold Stokowski and Leonard Bernstein, in pop music, with Deep Purple, Frank Zappa, Barry White, and Paul McCartney, and as a top "session" french horn player featured on many studio recordings and television shows with Peggy Lee, Barbara Streisand, Paul Simon, and Tony Bennett. Terry Johns played on dozens of film sound tracks, including "Fiddler on the roof", "Oliver", "Battle of Britain", "Diamonds are for ever" and "Star Wars". The author's musical life began in the brass band of Tower Colliery in South Wales, where his father worked as a miner. These letters are a personal tale of celebration and survival in the sometimes hostile and uncertain environment of professional music, where often the only security of employment is one's skill and ability, and difficulties are greeted with the humour and resilience that has always characterized working musicians everywhere.

Author Biography

Terry began his career in brass at age ten in the band of Tower Colliery in South Wales where his father worked as a miner. He was awarded a Glamorgan scholarship at age eighteen to study the French horn with Barry Tuckwell at the Royal Academy of music in London. Terry later became professor of horn at the Academy. He also conducted brass ensemble classes there, and was later appointed an associate. In the distinguished career that followed he was to become a member of the London Mozart players, the Royal Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra, always in demand for the leading brass ensembles such as the, Barry Tuckwell Horn quartet, the Jack Brymer Wind Soloists and the Philip Jones brass group. Terry composed, conducted, and arranged music for the RPO brass, LSO brass. He also composed the theme and incidental music for Harlech TV's The Pretenders; the orchestra being assembled from London's "session", community, and principals from the London orchestras, and conducted the recording sessions himself, at Abbey road studios. He was invited, by the actor Robert Hardy to arrange the final hymn, for the Rhos-Cwm Tawe male choir, and the solo trumpet of Maurice Murphy, at the memorial service for Richard Burton at the church of St. Martin in the fields Trafalgar square. He played as a member of the LSO, at the opening concert of the Barbican centre and at the Eightieth birthday concert of Aaron Copland, and as a studio player, in backing orchestras for many top performers such as Tony Bennet, Barbara Streisand, Shirley Bassey, Jack Jones, and Peggy Lee. He was a featured player in the orchestras of many world famous arrangers and composers, such as Henry Mancini, Billy May, Michel Legrand and Barry White's "Love Unlimited' orchestra. Terry also played on dozens of film soundtracks, including Battle of Britain, Diamonds are Forever, Superman, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Return of the Jedi where he can be heard playing the famous horn solo at the funeral of Darth Vader.