MCGLOHON

Loonis McGlohon was born in a small eastern-Carolina town, and his exposure, as a young boy, to jazz and popular songs was limited to what he heard on radio. Late night broadcasts from New York hotel ballrooms introduced Loonis to big bands, which sometimes featured songs by Alec Wilder. The subtle and somewhat unorthodox songs by Wilder fascinated the boy, who also managed to find recordings of his idol’s Octets. Loonis never dreamed that one day, thirty years later, he would have an opportunity to write songs with his hero, Alec Wilder.
After college and four years in the Air Force during World War II, Loonis McGlohon and his wife Nan moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, a city which served as a home base for the pianist-composer. In Charlotte, Loonis formed a trio and worked as a television performer and producer when he was not taking some turns “on the road” with Jimmy Dorsey, Judy Garland and others as pianist.
Loonis met Alec Wilder for the first time in the sixties during a television production of Wilder music. The two became friends and started a collaboration which would last until Wilder’s death in 1980. Together they wrote about 75 songs, an opera Mountain Boy, the score for Land of Oz, an outdoor musical recreation of the classic story which ran for ten years atop Beech Mountain in western North Carolina, and even a few classical pieces. Some of the better known Wilder-McGlohon songs include “Blackberry Winter”, “Be a Child” and “South to A Warmer Place”, their last song which was recorded by Frank Sinatra.
McGlohon and Wilder were co-hosts of the late seventies Peabody Award winning National Public Radio series, American Popular Song: 40 programs featuring the contributions of the innovative songwriters of the first half of the twentieth century performed by a dazzling array of America’s finest singers including Tony Bennett, Margaret Whiting and Mabel Mercer with the Loonis McGlohon Trio. Alec Wilder gave his subjective but illuminating commentary. 13 more programs of out-takes were later broadcast as Alec Wilder Revisited.
McGlohon was later to co-host Eileen Farrell’s NPR radio series, American Singers, which included such guest artists as Barbara Cook, Gene Puerling’s Singers Unlimited and many others. The theme song for the series, “Songbird (Thank You for Your Lovely Song)”, was originally written by Loonis as a tribute to the late Teddi King and has been recorded by George Shearing, Rob McConnell, Meredith d’Ambrosio, Wesla Whitfield. Loonis was Eileen Farrell’s musical director from 1980, and together they recorded nine albums, presented a New York Lincoln Center concert, Listen to the Words with Mabel Mercer, and performed as featured artists on Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion.
Loonis McGlohon had a varied songwriting career. He wrote hundreds of popular, jazz, Christmas, children’s and religious songs and choral pieces. With Charles Kuralt, he wrote a tribute to their home state, North Carolina Is My Home, which has been recorded and performed around the world, and also wrote the theme to Kuralt’s CBS TV show On The Road. He also collaborated with Hugh Martin, Carroll Coates, Billy VerPlanck and Marian McPartland on whose NPR Piano Jazz show he appeared.
The Loonis McGlohon Trio performed worldwide from America’s premiere venues Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and The Smithsonian to a tour of China and a performance for royalty at Glamis Castle, Scotland. Loonis recorded over thirty albums, some with Robert Farnon, Marlene VerPlanck, Margaret Whiting, Dick Haymes and Maxine Sullivan.
The prolific work of Loonis McGlohon, including his tireless community service efforts, brought him many awards: two honorary doctorates including his alma mater East Carolina University, the North Carolina Award, National Headliners Award, Gabriel Award, two Iris Awards, TRAV Award, The Vanguard Award and North Carolina Composer of the Year on two occasions. A Loonis McGlohon Chair of Christian Music was endowed at the Carmel Presbyterian Church, Charlotte, North Carolina. Loonis McGlohon was inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame.