Pardon me if I sound breathless. One of my writing heroes forever and ever isNat Hentoff. An editor at Downbeat in the late 1950s and for many, many years a
columnist for the Village Voice, he wrote many volumes on jazz, music in general
and on diverse subjects such as religion and First Amendment rights.
Yesterday, I found out via a Google search that he quoted me in his 2004 book
"American Music is." It's just a few words, but it's incredible to me that Nat
Hentoff read something I wrote and that it stuck with him enough to have it be
the keystone for a point he made in one of his books. I always
figure I just churn it out and hope that somebody will notice. Well, I guess
somebody really did.
The quote comes from my article on Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup in the long
out-of-print "MusicHound Blues: The Essential Album Guide"(Visible Ink Press,
1998).
To see Hentoff's big quote, click here.
