And yet another important and much beloved composer and musician from our long-ago pasts joins the steadily growing folk choir in whatever Great Beyond there is.

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Wheeler just for the great songs he wrote and because he always acknowledged the Kingston Trio's significant role in boosting his career from being a graduate student at Yale in 1961 and carrying handwritten copies of his songs to whoever was playing at the folk clubs in Greenwhich Village at the time to a long and fruitful career in real big-time show business.

The Trio waxed two of Billy Edd's early songs toward the end of their first ten years - "Coal Tattoo" on Time To Think and "Ann" on Back In Town - but it seems their paths intersected more than once according to remarks made at different points by both Wheeler and John Stewart.

Rather later, maybe ten or twelve years ago, our friend and Xroads poster in days of yore Steve Cottrell was in contact with Billy Edd and sent along to him my old Comparative Video 101 piece on Wheeler's "Jackson." Billy Edd seemed to like what I had written, and if I can find his remarks to Steve I'll post them below (with Steve's permission of course).

In any event, here's the essay I wrote on "Jackson" -

https://compvid101.blogspot.com/2013/08/billy-edd-wheelers-jackson.html

I wish that Billy Edd could have lived another five years and matched Harry Belafonte's 96 year life span, but we have to take what we are given, and I'm glad that we had Billy Edd Wheeler in our midst for 91 years,