Oregon’s famous son stays home
Mason Williams has
come home again. To
Oregon, to Eugene, to the
Oakridge home of his
childhood.
Williams has made it
big in the entertainment
scene in this country. Best
known, perhaps, for his
Grammy Award-winning
Classical Gas, he has
spent a large amount of
his time writing for
television, most recently
as Head Writer on
NBC-TV’s “Saturday Night
Live. ” Williams has
returned home to Eugene
to perform his Concert for
Orchestra and Bluegrass
Band.
As a child he roamed the hills around Oakridge;
since then Mason Williams' songs and jokes have
been roaming the airwaves of the nation. But his
recent return to Eugene is something he says almost
shouldn’t have happened. Williams had to “bail out”
from his Head Writer position at Saturday Night Live,
and for at least the second time in his career he
found himself leaving the "life in the fast lane" and
heading back to his Oregon sanctuary. The first time,
he went fishing for six months; this time he has come
home to make some new music with some old
friends.
Williams' career grew up in the coffee shops of
Oklahoma, and he eventually brought his guitar and
folk songs to Southern California. It didn’t take long
for his talents to be discovered: The Smothers
Brothers, hungry for new material for their act,
caught Williams' act one night, and two days later
they were recording an album together. The
Smothers Brothers — with Williams as their
“right-hand man" — moved into the world of
television.
As one of the head writers of The Smothers
Brothers Comedy Hour, Williams was propelled into
the Hollywood mainstream. Things got big real quick.
He stopped writing music and concentrated on his
television career — and exploring and enjoying the
Hollywood lifestyle. Then, after a trip to Las Vegas,
where he and Tommy Smothers "stayed awake for
two weeks,” he returned to his guitar.
“It was like an old buddy I hadn’t linked up with
in a long time,” Williams says. "I hadn't played much
music since the television writing thing became so
big. But when I finally got back with my guitar ail this
enthusiasm for exploring the instrument came out of
me. ‘Classical Gas' developed out of that enthusiasm;
it took about two months to finish writing it."
>■ ■ "■* "■ ■ 11 » 1 ■ 1 ' 11,1 ...
The Year was 1968, and “Classical Gas" brought
Williams into stardom. The song won two Grammy
Awards, racing to the top of the charts all across the
country. And then, something snapped.
“One day,” he says, "I was driving down the
Ventura Freeway going to a meeting and suddenly I
decided what the heck?’ So I turned right on the San
Diego Freeway and went back home to Oregon to go
fishing. I never came back. I gave up my place in line
in Hollywood.
“I wasn’t having that much fun being rich and
famous. I was raised on cheap thrills and how much
beer can you drink?"
For the next 12 years Williams "sort of hung
out," played music with friends, and occasionally
surfaced to write television. He wrote his Bluegrass
Symphony, introducing it in 1974.
Last year he wrote television specials for the
Smothers Brothers and Steve Martin. Then the new
Saturday Night Live producer hired him. Back to the
fast life, Mason?
“I thought Saturday Night was gonna be a lot of
fun," he says. "I was really looking forward to it. But
the new producer didn’t know what the hell she was
doing — she was nothing but ego and bullshit. She
had hired me as Head Writer and then wouldn’t let
me do anything.
“Now, when I was younger I could put up with
infinite amounts of bullshit. But as you get older you
find yourself less willing to put up with it. I had done a
lot of television; I just didn't feel like wading through
it anymore." He lasted only six weeks before he
decided to leave the show, six weeks which he says
"almost killed me.” And, besides, New York was "too
far from home.”
"New York is one of the most foreign countries
I’ve ever been in,” he says. “And I like to go barefoot
and take a leak in the backyard — you know?”
And so Mason Williams is back home (he has a
house in both Eugene and Oakridge). His Bluegrass
Symphony concert is March 7, and he is more than
busy with rehearsals. It is, after all, no small thing to
bring bluegrass and symphonic music together.
Williams has performed the concert 14 times; he
performed it in Mac Court in 1976 with the Eugene
Symphony. He says the March 7 concert will be much
better than the earlier one. He’s re-written much of
the music, and is giving this latest version more of a
bluegrass emphasis.
Bluegrass and symphonies aren't as different as
one might think, Williams stresses. “There are some
basic, underlying qualities about them,” he says.
“They are both acoustic forms of music — less
fashion is involved, and more attention is paid to the
art form itself. And they both have a good tradition of
story telling.
"When I’m writing this music, what I want is to
have the bluegrass and the orchestra tell a story that
neither one could tell without the other. They should
do what they do in context with each other, not
merely one trying to imitate the other.
"I try to stretch the compositional space the
music could be in."
\Nilliams isn't trained in orchestration, but he
says it’s been challenging to write for an orchestra of
highly-trained musicians. “What we re doing is more
of a folk-art concert. I don't claim to be a real
symphonic writer; but I've always been able to find
these spaces that no one’s playing in and see if
there’s a nugget in there ”
Williams’ Concert for Orchestra and Bluegrass
Band will consist of the Eugene Symphony Orchestra
along with Williams and his seven-piece bluegrass
band. The concert will be at 8 p.m., Saturday, March
7 at the Lane County Fairgrounds Exhibit Hall There
will be only one performance. For reservations and
information call the Eugene Symphony office at
687-0020.
Story by Kirk Knighton
Photo by Erich Boekelheide