Yesterday was a busy day for the NYT: the obit writers were apparently playing catch-up. One of these I knew about, but was waiting for a reliable source on, while the others I had not heard about.
William E. Butterworth III, noted and bestselling author.
If the name doesn’t ring a bell with you, that’s because he wrote mostly under pseudonyms. His best known pen name was W.E.B. Griffin.
(Also: awesome photo, NYT.)
Ken Nordine, poet and “word jazz” guy.
I used to fall asleep with the radio on and wake up to it in the morning. As I recall, early on Sunday mornings, in that twilight zone when I was half-awake and half-asleep, our local public radio station aired re-runs of “Word Jazz”.
I had not heard of Ethel Ennis, but this is an interesting story: Playboy jazz poll winner for best female singer,
And then she mostly walked away from it all and became Baltimore’s unofficial “First Lady of Jazz”.
“They had it all planned out for me,” she told The Washington Post in 1979, referring to the music executives in charge of her career. “I’d ask, ‘When do I sing?’ and they’d say, ‘Shut up and have a drink. You should sit like this and look like that and play the game of bed partners.’ You really had to do things that go against your grain for gain. I wouldn’t.”
She added: “I want to do it my way. I have no regrets.”
Finally, David Horowitz, newscaster and consumer reporter. I remember watching the syndicated version of “Fight Back!” on one of the Houston TV stations (though I don’t recall which one) back when I was young…