What Film Music Has Meant to Me

by Jeff Heise

I have always loved music and cannot remember a time when it was not a part of my life. When I was a wee shaver, my mother brought me a recording of Glenn Miller music and for the next few years I was a swing music authority. I heard Johnny Cash sing "A Boy Named Sue" and began an exploration of country music, which was considered a bit avant-garde in Northeastern Ohio in 1969. But when my parents took me to see PATTON in 1970, what I thought was going to be a wonderful journey through the land of foul language and battles (required reading for a twelve-year-old male) began a love affair with celluloid melodies.

We acquired a copy of Goldsmith's score through the Record Club of America and I wore out sections of the score, especially the march and "German Advance" sections (thank you Lukas and Jeff for bringing out your CD of the OST). I wasn't able to really buy soundtracks on my own until 1975, when, for my first movie date (her name was Shirley, by the way) I went to see JAWS in Mentor, Ohio a week after it opened. The music grabbed me so much that I bought the score as soon as I could find a copy. Spielberg's notes mentioned THE GUNS OF NAVARONE and I looked for that score and found it in a library collection. Now I was really hooked, and began spending whatever money I could spare on filmmusic. STAR WARS and CE3K really did it for me, and God, I wish I could find my poster from the former that came with that album. Now I had record store managers that I had befriended keeping an eye out for the music. One of these men gave me a promo copy of MASADA before the series aired-needless to say, it was even better knowing the music.

One of my favorite experiences came with RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK in 1981. No one knew what this movie was all about, but when a special sneak preview was announced a few weeks before the release, I drove home to Cleveland from where I was attending college in NW Ohio to see it. A friend of mine was as familiar as I was with this potential blockbuster, so we decided to see it and get the jump on our friends. Earlier that afternoon I went to a record store in the Heights that got in advance copies of albums quite often, and as one of the clerks was going through the stack, I noticed the (now familiar) artwork of RAIDERS and asked the guy if the album was for sale. He shrugged and said "It's yours for two bucks," and I happily purchased it. I took it to my friend's house and we listened to the entire album before we went to the movie, arriving just five minutes before it started (to show you how obscure this film was, the theater was only about half full at the beginning!) and we had one hell of a time. No one else we knew were that interested when we told them about it, but they were sure talking differently not too long afterward! I've had my ups (E.T., SCHINDLER, JFK, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN) and downs (AMISTAD) with Williams, but that film will always be a highlight.

I had the honor of meeting Miklos Rozsa after a concert he gave at Meadowbrook in Michigan back in the early 80's and he signed my copy of TIME AFTER TIME (an album that was stolen from my collection) and was one of the most gracious people I've ever met. After moving to California and working in movie theaters, I've met some more of my music idols: David Shire was kind enough to give me a copy of his brilliant RETURN TO OZ score album when I recognized him (he went to his car and brought it back to me after the movie); Herbert Spencer came using his Academy card as was shocked (and honored) that I knew who he was; Randy Newman was in a hurry but happily shook my hand when I told him of my love for his score to THE NATURAL; and I was rudely turned away by a curmudgeonly female usher at Descanso Gardens when I went to get Goldsmith's autograph after a brilliant concert, but who then let a few others get through.

Well, I didn't get to meet everyone. . .

I have since gone from advance copies of vinyl albums to promo copies and limited edition CDs. I now have not only PATTON, JAWS and TIME AFTER TIME, but Tiomkin's LOST HORIZON and THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, Moross' brilliant THE BIG COUNTRY (a score I would take on a desert island, along with Friedhofer's THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES and Alfred Newman's THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD) and my lovely wife has a couple of rarities like UNDER FIRE and THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS that she bought before she knew me. I somehow knew from the earliest that a major part of my life would be musical, and when a film geek like me meets a woman who not only knows that great 1983 Goldsmith score well, but went to great lengths to find it, you know you followed the right path.

Now if I could only learn to like Hans Zimmer. . .oh, wait, I just found a used copy of THE THIN RED LINE. . . .

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