“I remember seeing what we used to call mimeographed sheets talking about Williams-in-India posted in Baxter Hall. And I got a phone call from Robert Gaudino inviting me to his office in Stetson Library for an interview. I had a beguiling lack of information. I simply thought that going to India would be cool. He had that uncanny way—had long pauses between interactions and he could get me to speak seeming unendingly. I had not had him for a course prior to that. This is spring semester our freshman year. I still consider myself somewhat of an initiate in the entire Williams experience. The niche he provided me certainly came to dominate my college years, but it began rather meekly. He asked me leading questions like, “What do you like to do? And if I came to your room what would I see?” I kind of described record albums and the role music played in my life. I was a disk jockey at WCFM. I was happy to come on at midnight and go all night. We talked about whether I was going to bring my guitar to India. He thought that I should. And I did. I think you’d have to be about 19 to think that that might work because it was cumbersome in trains. But it became really an ice breaker. I would move to villages where I would be working on tube wells at drilling sites so I’m kind of strumming anti-Vietnam war anthems and American folk songs and early rock and roll. One of the things I look back at, he being from Southern California and me being from Southern California, he actually played that down. I was born in Pasadena, where he grew up in Long Beach and spent summers in La Crescenta. I would play baseball against teams in those areas. But that was never part of it.

–James Mathieu '72