Tommy Johnson, tuba player on the "Jaws" theme, RIP

Johnson called "Jaws" his most memorable experience in the recording studio. Stuck in traffic on the 405 Freeway during a rainstorm, he arrived late to the session.

"When you're late like that, you're just really all upset," Johnson recalled in a 2004 interview with tubanews.com. "So as I sat down and barely got the mouthpiece in the tuba, I happened to open the book and the first cue is this big, long tuba solo...

"This solo kept recurring in almost every cue. I found out later that was the theme for the shark. I asked John Williams later why he wrote that so high for the tuba, why didn't he write that for the French horns since it was in the perfect range for them? He said, 'Well, I wanted something that was in that register but I wanted it to sound a little more threatening.' "