Conover, Willis, 1920-1996

...Born on December 18, 1920 in Buffalo, New York, Conover discovered his talent for radio announcing before he discovered jazz. In a 1994 interview with Billy Taylor for the Smithsonian Institution’s Jazz Oral History Project, he explained:

When I was a high school freshman, an upperclassman wrote a skit that took place, presumably, in a radio station, and because my voice had changed they gave me the role of the radio announcer to read phony commercials and so forth. So when it was all over, people came up to me and said, “Hey, you sound just like a real radio announcer!” Well, you know, when you’re about, whatever I was, about fourteen or something, well, it sticks in your mind. [8]
During his single year of college at Salisbury State Teachers College in Maryland in 1938 and 1939, he began working at the campus station, WSAL. After winning an announcer’s contest in Washington, D.C., he was offered a job at WTBO in Cumberland, Maryland, and it was in Cumberland that hearing Billy May’s arrangement of Ray Noble’s “Cherokee” first sparked his interest in jazz, quickly leading to his discovery of Duke Ellington’s music. [9]

Conover rose in the ranks of WTBO to Chief Announcer and music director, with the astounding salary of $37.50 a week. He enjoyed modest success in the local theater scene and played Albert in an early incarnation of the sitcom Ethel and Albert alongside the groundbreaking writer and actress Peg Lynch. [10] He was inducted into the Army in September of 1942, where his experience interviewing people on the radio led to a position as a classification specialist at Fort Meade, interviewing new recruits to match them with suitable duties. [11]

While still in the Army, he caught a major break at the Stage Door Canteen in Washington, D.C. simply by seeing a need and doing something about it. The music which someone else had picked out for an evening of dancing was just not cutting it. Conover selected and played replacements which were so well received that he obtained a part-time position at WWDC in Washington, D.C., working weekends at the station and spending the rest of the week with the Army....

... Conover also established himself as a concert promoter. The Washington Post noted that he had, by early 1951, emceed concerts featuring Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Billy Eckstine, George Shearing, and Ralph Flanigan. [22] It was also Conover who heard Ruth Brown singing at Blanche Calloway’s Club Crystal Caverns in Washington, D.C., and recommended her to Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records. [23]

Conover also made use of his position as a concert promoter to break down the color barrier in the segregated club scenes of Washington, D.C. ...

By 1949, Conover was also known to the Voice of America, over six years before the beginning of Music USA....

In the early 1950s, Conover co-founded an all-star ensemble known as The Orchestra of Washington, D.C., with drummer and bandleader Joe Timer (originally “Theimer”)....

it was a conversation he overheard by chance at WEAM that changed his life: the Voice of America was hiring a jazz broadcaster. [42]...

Willis Clark Conover, Jr. (December 18, 1920 – May 17, 1996) was a jazz producer and broadcaster on the Voice of America for over forty years. He produced jazz concerts at the White House, the Newport Jazz Festival, and for movies and television. By arranging concerts where people of all races were welcome, he is credited with desegregating Washington D.C. nightclubs.[2] Conover is credited with keeping interest in jazz alive in the countries of Eastern Europe through his nightly broadcasts during the Cold War.[3]

As a young man Conover was interested in science fiction, and published a science fiction fanzine, Science Fantasy Correspondent. This brought him into contact with horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The correspondence between Lovecraft, who was at the end of his life, and the young Conover, has been published as Lovecraft at Last (Carrolton-Clark, 1975; reprint 2004).

Conover's father had intended for him to attend The Citadel and follow his family's tradition of military service. Instead, he attended the Maryland State Teacher's College at Salisbury, Maryland, and became a radio announcer for WTBO in Cumberland, Maryland.

He later moved to Washington, D.C., and focused on jazz in his programming, especially the Duke Ellington hour on Saturday nights. His guests on this program and Saturday morning shows included many important artists, such as Boyd Raeburn.

Conover came to work at the Voice of America, and eventually became a legend among jazz lovers, primarily due to the hour-long program on the Voice of America called Voice of America Jazz Hour. Known for his sonorous baritone voice, many would argue that he was the most important presenter on Voice of America. His slow delivery and the use of scripts written in "special English" made his programmes more widely accessible and he is said to have become the first teacher of English to a whole generation of East European jazz lovers.[4] Conover was not well known in the United States, even among jazz aficionados, as the Voice of America did not broadcast domestically except on shortwave, but his visits to Eastern Europe and Soviet Union brought huge crowds and star treatment for him. He was a celebrity figure in the Soviet Union, where jazz was very popular and the Voice of America was a prime source of information as well as music.

In 1956, Conover conducted a series of interviews with jazz luminaries like Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Stan Getz, Peggy Lee, Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, and Art Tatum. His interview with Tatum is noted as "the only known in-depth recorded interview with the pianist". These interviews were selected by the Library of Congress as a 2010 addition to the National Recording Registry, which selects recordings annually that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[5]

Death
Conover died of lung cancer on May 17, 1996, at age 75.[6] He had been a smoker for 57 years.[7]

Legacy
In 1990, Conover was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music. [8]

In 2015, the University of North Texas announced its Willis Conover Collection would make digitized copies of Conover's programs available online.[9]