By Request... The Best of John Williams and the Boston Pops OrchestraThis evening I listened to a CD that I've owned since the late '80s. It was one of the first CDs I purchased after receiving a boom-box-style CD player (which included the '80s-required built-in dual cassette player) from my parents for High School graduation -- no mean feat, considering they weren't remotely wealthy and CD players were newfangled gadgets -- a gift which totally boggled me out of my mind. That was back in the days when cassette tapes ruled the music world and in small-town Hurricane, Utah CDs were hard to come by.

What's the CD? John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra's "By Request... The Best of John Williams", a collection of John Williams' own well-known compositions performed by the Boston Pops Orchestra under the direction of the composer-conductor.

At 18-years-old, I heard for the first time "The Cowboys Overture" and was swept away. So tonight I queued up track 2 and gave it a listen.

Wow! John writes good stuff!

It had the same impact, the quick tempo and catchy melodies sweeping me up in the sound. I listened, eagerly awaiting the climax moment (at a little over 7 minutes into the nearly 9 minute song). Would the vivid imagery from those years ago be the same?

There it was, at about 7:15! The mental imagery was there! The song still took me to a high mountain peak on a sunny afternoon with cool, crisp air and a stunning vista spread out below me in panorama!

Perhaps it was Pine Valley Mountain's Signal Peak, a mounain top at over 10,000 ft. in altitude that stands out so well that if you ever fly out of Las Vegas for parts north or east of Las Vegas on a clear day, and if you know where to look, you can't miss it -- it is visible from the air for hundreds of miles. The peak overlooks the surrounding southwestern Utah communities of St. George, Hurricane as well as proffering grand views of the majestic sandstone cliffs of Zion National Park to the east, which cliffs tower above broad mesas that Wile E. Coyote would be right at home chasing Roadrunner around.

That passage in The Cowboys Overture always makes me think of standing atop a peak or tall cliff with majestic vistas spread below in the crisp, clear air.

Quite apropos to think of such Western U.S. landscapes while listening to a piece titled "The Cowboys Overture" I think.

I think I appreciated the middle passages of the song now that I'm older. Just as I've grown to love Holst's Saturn, I've come to love melodies and passages that include a hint or more of melancholy, struggle, sorrow, or pain, especially those that do so without wallowing in it, instead expressing the emotions in context of continuing life and future hope. As a teenager I probably mostly wanted to skip through the slower middle section to get back to the upbeat quick-moving stuff.

(I'd never seen the 1972 John Wayne movie "The Cowboys" that the music was written for nor have I seen it since, so I have no mental association between a movie and the music.)

Thank you John Willliams! You're amazing! I love your music, have from my teens, and will ever love it. You're right up there in my book with Holst, Grieg, Copland, Gershwin, Dvorak, Ravel, Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven, and all them thar other musical geniuses since the list could go on forever and cover a bazillion musical styles.

(Hmmm, the "them thar" phrase, is that "The Cowboys Overture" infecting me with Western-cliche-style-speak?)