Mary Campbell, music writer for the AP, dead at 78

NEW YORK (AP) - Mary Campbell, whose childhood affection for the big bands and opera she heard on her radio set the stage for four decades as a music writer for The Associated Press, has died. She was 78.

Campbell died in Bloomington, Ind., according to her sister, Ruth Miller.

From symphony to rock `n’ roll, from Duke Ellington to Beverly Sills to the Dixie Chicks, Campbell covered the entertainment scene, earning respect from the artists she wrote about and devotion from the public who followed her profiles and reviews.

“Mary Campbell is a most admired reporter, not only because she writes so well but also because she knows an interesting story when she hears about it,” celebrated conductor-tenor Placido Domingo once said.

At a party for the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary in the 1990s, Mary Travers politely greeted the many luminaries in attendance, but spent much of the evening huddled in a corner with Campbell, catching up with her old friend.

“It will be hard to think of The Associated Press without Mary Campbell on its staff,” said crooner Tony Bennett upon her retirement in 2000.

Many of her readers likely agreed.

In one of her final articles, she interviewed Joe Cocker and asked the veteran rocker, “Do you still make jerky movements onstage?”

Yes, replied Cocker, “playing an imaginary piano and air guitar. That was the frustration of not being able to play, really.”

Campbell couldn’t play a musical instrument, either, nor could she carry a tune. It didn’t matter to her. She loved her role as a member of the audience, reporting on music for other music lovers.

“I write for an ordinary person like me,” she once said. “I’m not trying to be erudite, I’m trying to be enthusiastic and clear. I always feel like the person I’m writing for would be just as touched by the music or the play as I am if they were standing in my shoes.”

She was born in Mount Sterling, Ill., in 1934. As a farm girl, she hid under the cover with her radio to catch the late-night big band broadcasts from Chicago.

On Saturday afternoons, she was transfixed by the Metropolitan Opera productions aired from the distant city of New York. And, even then the dogged researcher, she logged time at the local library, boning up on the next week’s performance.

“We lived outside the town limits, so they wouldn’t let me check the books out,” she remembered. “When I was about 8, I discovered that all the opera stories were in the encyclopedia, so I’d stop by on my way home after school and read them.”

Campbell attended the University of Illinois, earning a degree in journalism, and after joining the AP in Chicago in 1960, transferred to the AP’s New York headquarters the same year.

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