Tribute to a friend
For Don Henley and other stars, honoring Timothy White is music to their ears
Author: Sarah Rodman
Publication: Boston Herald
Date: October 3, 2002
Abstract: Henley talks about paying tribute to Timothy White.
Timothy White was famous for expressing his love for music and musicians with detailed and ornate sentences in his Billboard magazine column "Music to My Ears." With his passing, the artists he appreciated the most, like Don Henley, are now doing the same for him.
"He didn't pander or kowtow to the popular conceptions in the critical establishment about who is cool and who isn't cool," says Henley. "He saw things through his own eyes and with his own criteria. He loved music with great passion and he also loved history and writing and words and ideas and culture and he was very special in that regard."
Mitch Glazer experienced a surreal sensation the first time he saw an ad for next week's superstar "Music to My Ears" tribute concerts for his late friend, who was editor in chief at Billboard.
The formidable list of musicians honoring White at the FleetCenter Monday night includes Henley, James Taylor, Sting, John Mellencamp, Sheryl Crow, Billy Joel and Roger Waters. The following night, at New York's Madison Square Garden, Jimmy Buffett and Brian Wilson will join Sting, Henley, Mellencamp and Crow in an effort to celebrate White's life and raise money for his widow and two children, one of whom is autistic.
"When I saw the first ad, and it said that list of names," says Glazer, "the only person I wanted to talk to was Tim. It is, obviously, bittersweet."
Glazer, the screenwriter responsible for such films as "Scrooged" and the upcoming "The Recruit" starring Al Pacino, has been mourning his best friend - whom he met when the pair were aspiring rock critics at Crawdaddy magazine in the '70s - since White died from a heart attack at age 50 in June, right after having lunch with Glazer and his daughter.
"Almost immediately they (the artists) started talking about a concert," to help White's widow with the dramatic cost of education for her special-needs son, says Glazer. The idea, he says, "sprang almost full grown."
Henley concurs, "I don't know that there was any one single catalyst, I think this all coalesced of its own volition. I think all these people loved Timothy so much that I think we all had the same idea at the same time."
"I really wasn't surprised at the level of affection and respect from those guys," says Glazer, noting that White was friends with most of the artists involved. "Judy, Tim's widow, said at one point, 'God, he would be surprised at what they're doing,' and maybe he would be, because he was a modest guy. But I'm not. I know that they loved him."
They had good reason to.
White, who lived on Beacon Hill and often could be spotted in Boston nightclubs in his trademark bow tie, was no mere rock critic. A delightful, witty man, the New Jersey native was a passionate music fan with an unparalleled erudition and sense of joy.
In addition to his work at Billboard, the former Rolling Stone editor penned biographies of Taylor, Wilson and Bob Marley and hosted a syndicated radio show.
White's "Music to My Ears" column in Billboard not only championed music that he loved by artists internationally famous and completely unknown, it was also a pulpit from which White took sometimes unpopular stances on industry issues, including artists rights, the high cost of CDs and the violence and misogyny in some rap music.
It was both his love of music and his professional integrity that so many musicians appreciated, says Henley, on the phone from a Colorado tour stop with the Eagles.
"He was anachronistic in modern culture in that he refused to look the other way," says Henley. "His ethics were not the ethics of convenience. He stood his ground even if it meant swimming against the tide, and he did that often, and his perception was not colored by the propaganda of modernity.
"He was a great writer," adds Henley. "His dedication to the work and his diligence and the depth of his research and his enthusiasm was something that we all respected and admired."
Henley says, from his research, White even told him "some things about my life that I had long forgotten."
"He wasn't interested in being politically correct or hip, that was the thing I admired about him," Henley says. "He wore his bow tie, he dressed more like a college professor than a rock 'n' roll writer, with the exception of the white bucks."
Accolades have poured in from both artists and industry executives. Aimee Mann, who bids farewell to the writer on her latest album, told the Herald this week that White was simply, "the sweetest guy and one of the five decent well-known people in the music business." Sheryl Crow was equally effusive, calling White "a great person, I don't know that there are any more like him out there. It's almost mythical."
That package of integrity, talent and artist-friendliness prompted Billboard President Howard Lander to hire White in 1991. It was a good decision, since under White's tenure, Lander says "Billboard won more awards than at any time in its history."
At the tribute show, Boston fans can expect impromptu collaborations from its all-stars, including a finale of Marley's "Get Up, Stand Up." Though the show will undoubtedly be tinged with melancholy, Glazer believes that it also will be a lot of fun. "His last words to my daughter were 'rock on' and I think the concert will. I think it will honor that. I think it will be moving but I think it's going to rock, too."
