TO WRITE a 553-page biography, meticulously referenced, you must be enchanted by your subject, and Tim Greiving certainly is, introducing the film composer John Williams as: “He scored the foundational dreams and cinematic religious and moments of the 20th and 21st-centuries and his scores created transcendence and formed permanent grooves in the cultural recall.” Williams is in the company of “pop culture saints”.

The American composer of film music for Star Wars, ET, Indiana Jones, and the Harry Potter series came from Irish Catholic stock, had a devout mother, Esther, and spent a year at a Jesuit school. While not now practising, Williams acknowledges the influence of faith: “probably I have carried some sense of Catholicism and the medieval attraction of the art in it, and the superstition and spirituality of what’s in it.”

In 1992, Williams scored Far and Away, about an Irish Midwest settlement, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, and worked with the Chieftains to create an authentic sound of bodhran (drum) and penny whistle. The director, Ron Howard, said of Williams’s composing that it was “almost like it’s a miracle to him — almost as though he’s humbled by the power of it, and really appreciative of his role in channelling that, and using it and sharing that with people”.

Greiving presents his archival research into Williams’s paternal family with a gossamer touch. We learn that the self-taught musician Thomas Nagle wooed flinty Kathleen at a turn-of-the-20th-century Maine church dance, and then deserted her before their son, John Francis, was born.

First generation Irish entertainers’ enthusiasm for the minstrel tradition, so that they would no longer be the butt of jokes, makes for a difficult read. Williams’s father, John Francis, used his percussion skills to shield his family from the 1930s Depression, earning $500 per week in a studio band, during radio’s golden age. Yet the contrast between the encouragement given to Williams and the dinner-making duties expected of his talented sister Joan casts a shadow on the Happy Days image.

Born in 1932, Williams enlisted for the Korean War shortly after graduating from high school in North Hollywood. The description of basic training, during a San Antonio winter, when recruits shivered in tents, with two issued blankets, shows Greiving’s gift for making research sing.

A Composer’s Life has the elements of a starry biography, from Barbara Walters’s father to Bing Crosby’s kids, as well as a discography of quintets, sextets, and tracks. It also offers a vista of modern America as sweeping and compelling as Williams’s music.

Susan Gray writes about the arts and entertainment for The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times, and the Daily Mail.

John Williams: A composer’s life
Tim Greiving
OUP £31.99
(978-0-19-762088-5)
Church Times Bookshop £28.79