Dick McGarvin writes from Los Angeles:<\/p>\n
I’ve been catching up on stuff, including a backlog of Rifftides<\/em> (high tide?), which brings me to…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I’m not sure why, but your letter to Gene Lees about Willis Conover<\/a> touched me even more than when I first read it in the Jazzletter<\/em>. Maybe it’s because of reading TAKE FIVE<\/a> and knowing more now about that great 1969 New Orleans Jazz Festival and your relationship with Willis. (By coincidence, I just recently was playing the Gary McFarland album PROFILES <\/a>on which Willis Conover makes the introduction.) Ironic and sad that one of the most important broadcast figures in this country’s history is one of the least known.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This slightly belated response to your item about Willis Conover was also prompted by the news that, yesterday, as I’m sure you know, this year’s Presidential Medal of Freedom awards <\/a>were presented. There were fourteen recipients, including Alan Greenspan, Muhammad Ali, General Richard Myers, Aretha Franklin, Frank Robinson, Andy Griffith, Carol Burnett and Paul Harvey. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I agree that Willis Conover should have been on that list years ago and, if there is ever a petition to have him awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously, I would like to add my name.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n