Pressure is the constant companion of any professional musician. Finding and keeping gigs is a non-negotiable fact of life – at least for artists who want to eat regularly.
But imagine also being the son of John Williams, one of the most revered and celebrated musical figures of the past half-century.
If that’s a double whammy, you wouldn’t know it from his son Joseph’s career. The 65-year-old is a veteran singer-composer whose glittering resume includes voicing the character of the adult Simba in the beloved 1994 Disney flick “The Lion King,” and composing for such films and TV series as “Goonies,” the first two “Star Wars” episodes, “Felicity” and “Roswell.”
On and off since 1986 – and continuously since 2010 – Joseph Williams has performed as lead singer for Toto, the seminal “yacht rock” band that will check into the TD Pavilion at Highmark Mann in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park on Sunday, July 26, along with fellow early-1980s hit makers Christopher Cross and The Romantics.
John Williams is the multiple Grammy- and Oscar-winning composer of the “Star Wars” films, as well as “Jaws,” “Harry Potter,” “E.T.” and “Jurassic Park.” According to his son, that lineage has always been something of a double-edged sword.
“I think my dad would’ve liked me to have gotten a law degree or something like that,” Joseph laughed during a recent phone interview.
“To be perfectly honest with you,” he noted, “there was a period of time – and probably still is – where, in his mind, he doesn’t consider (rock) to be serious music. But the other side of the coin is that he has great admiration and respect for people who perform and go out and do the work of performing night after night after night, regardless of what the content is. He’s very impressed with all of that.
“So, he’s always been incredibly supportive,” Joseph added, “and never really applied any kind of pressure to do what he does. And he has great respect for all kinds of music.”
John Williams didn’t start by composing film music, according to his son.
“People may not know … that he started out as a jazz musician,” Joseph explained. “He didn’t start out doing concertos and symphonies and that kind of stuff. He started out doing jazz, so he gets it. With the amount of touring (Toto has) done in the last 15 years around the planet, he has tremendous respect for what we do.”
Joseph’s own show-business pedigree extends beyond his paternal genes. His late mother Barbara Ruick – from whom her son says he got his passion for performing – was an in-demand actor on radio and in the early days of television. She also appeared in such beloved film musicals as “The Band Wagon” and “Carousel.”
Her parents, Melville Ruick and Lurlene Tuttle, were likewise well-known and prolific actors. Tuttle’s credits over her half-century career included “Heaven Only Knows” and “Psycho.”
But let’s face it, if you’re a musician, it’s difficult to conjure a better mentor and sounding board than Joseph’s 94-year-old father. Is there any advice his dad has provided that stands out? Joseph was asked.
“I think the main one is to always be trying to improve upon what you do and what you’re doing,” he related. “You can always be better. You can always do a performance a little bit tighter.
“It’s about constantly leaning into trying to improve on what you’re doing and never resting on your laurels,” Joseph added. “And always having humility about what you’re doing, and being willing to look at it and say, ‘Hey, I can make that better.’
“That’s really the biggest lesson from him.”
Embracing ‘yacht rock’
In 2024, HBO debuted “Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary.” It identified Toto – along with the likes of Cross, Steely Dan, Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald – as the form’s founding fathers. For the uninitiated, yacht rock is a lighter, hook-laden form of rock from the 1970s and ’80s often infused with jazz (as in the case of Steely Dan) and R&B (McDonald).
A hallmark of yacht-rock concerts is the many people who show up wearing yachting caps; think Thurston Howell III on TV’s “Gilligan’s Island.” While there’s no questioning music made by the aforementioned artists and others has been immensely popular for decades, there are those who consider yacht rock to be rock music for people who don’t like rock music.
So where does Joseph Williams stand on the yacht rock phenomenon?
“Well, originally it sort of started as a kind of a parody, a little bit of a joke,” he recalled. “Some guys made a video where they were wearing captain’s hats and singing a Christopher Cross song. Of course, sometimes these things have a life of their own, which is exactly what happened here. And then if you look at the documentary, it points out how (original) members of Toto played on all of the famous records that have sort of been given the moniker of ‘yacht rock.’
“So, now we embrace it,” Joseph continued. “I mean, why not at this point? It’s become its own little genre of music. And it’s nice to be part of it. People are loving it. It’s keeping the music alive in a certain way. It’s a kind of a goofy title, but for the most part we embrace it.
“I think everybody’s come to terms that it’s not a horrible thing.”
For tickets, go to ticketmaster.com.
Toto lead singer Joseph Williams and his band will perform at Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park on Sunday, July 26.
