Perhaps best known for his work with the classical-pop cross-over group Sky, John Williams is one of the classical guitar’s foremost exponents, with a distinguished 40-year performing and recording career of quite astonishing variety.

“I don’t consciously go out and look for interesting projects, they just seem to happen,” he says. “There are a lot of things that excite me, but you really haven’t time to do them all.”
It helps that the classical guitar repertoire has expanded hugely in the past 23 years, to encompass music from many different cultures, as well as drawing on jazz and pop, areas John has worked in extensively, both with Sky and through his collaborations with the ‘first couple’ of jazz, Cleo Laine and John Dankworth.

The double CD compilation, ‘The Ultimate Guitar Collection’ gives a valuable overview of Williams’ many musical excursions, taking in Venezuelan, African and Cuban music, alongside works by Bach, Faure and Vivaldi. There’s also a Charlie Byrd piece and film music by John’s namesake, John T Williams (no relation) and Stanley Myers, whose ‘Cavatina’, from ‘The Deer Hunter’, was a big hit for John in the late Seventies.

Despite this kaleidoscopic musical activity, John admits that during his early years as a performer he was, to use the Sixties lingo, “a bit of a straight”.

“I didn’t really catch up with The Beatles until the late Sixties, and their ‘Abbey Road’ album,” John recalls. “It was also around that time I went to Ronnie Scott’s jazz club and met Cleo Laine and John Dankworth. Getting involved with the London musical scene really broadened my horizons musically.”

Ten years later, just as Sky started to take off, John appeared at the first ‘Secret Policeman’s Ball’ charity fund-raiser for Amnesty International, performing a duet with The Who’s Pete Townsend.
“Originally we were going to do two songs, and I had worked out what I thought were some nice accompaniments to go with ‘Pinball Wizard’ and ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’.

“However, we ended up only doing ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, which worked very well, but the only problem was my microphone wasn’t working, so though people could hear me in the hall, you can hardly hear me on the recording, which was a bit of a shame.”

John has explored many forms of music in a project with long-time friend, and sometime collaborator, Richard Harvey, formerly of the band Gryphon, and now an acclaimed TV and soundtrack composer.

“We called our duo ‘World Tour Programme’,” John explains. “Richard was playing about 30 instruments and I was on the guitar, of course. We were playing Chinese, South East Asian music, as well as pieces from Madagascar, Africa and Latin America, mixed in with medieval and European music.

Pictures: top – John Williams; bottom – John with Richard Harvey