The famous jazz singer Billy Holiday was sober the day Loonis McGlohon interviewed her for his WBT radio program near the end of her life many years ago. “I did one of the last interviews with her and asked her some off-the-wall questions,” McGlohan, Charlotte’s internationally known songwriter and pianist, told us, such as, “What do you think Elvis Presley?”

“He sure is commercial, ain’t he?” Holiday replied. She went on to add, “I think he stole from a lot of colored people. He sure ain’t doin’ nothin’ I haven’t heard before.” Then, McGlohon, who literally revived the careers of some jazz artists with his WBT radio and TV shows such as the twice-weekly “Nocturne,” program that began in 1949, asked Holiday what she thought of Peggy Lee.

“I met her,” Holiday said, “and I told her she should quit singin’ about he man I love and sing about someone she loves.” She had very little education but knew so much, McGlohan says of Holiday. "No one sings the word 'love' like Billy. No one sings the word 'heartache' like Billy. Her singing defines the words. It must have come out of that black experience. Here she was, world famous and had to come into the club where she worked through the back door."

Billy Holiday is only one of Loonis McGlohan’s many musical heroes. Recently honored for his distinguished musical career at Lincoln Center in New York City, where the Mayor declared it “Loonis McGlohan Day,” Loonis would rather talk about his heroes than about himself. “I have a long list of heroes, in and out of the music business.

Among pianists, for instance, Loonis cites Bill Evans, George Shearing, Art Tatum, and "a young guy from Chicago, David Hazeltine," as players he admires. "You don't have enough time for me to list just my musical heroes," he says. "I admire so many. Tony Bennett really handled his recent fame well, I think. Joe Williams.

"The first time I accompanied Joe on a show, I asked him what sort of accompaniment he wanted to have. He worked with Count Basie, who played spare, but he also worked with some great technicians. So, I said that and asked what he wanted me to do." Williams replied, "Loonis, it ain't easy being white, is it?" The line became a refrain Williams used every time he saw McGlohan afterwards.

McGlohan began his musical career at 15, mentored by trumpeter Skip Hatley, who got him his first pro gig playing piano at a Carolina beach club for a summer. He studied accounting and small business management in college, graduating from East Carolina in 1942. He married Nancy Lovelace, put in a stint with the U.S. Air Force band during the war, and worked in Southern Rail Road's freight department afterward. Weekends, he played with the Billy Kanauff Band and did short tours with the famous Jimmy Dorsey swing band. In 1949 he began his WBT broadcast career that would land him in both the national and North Carolina Broadcasters' Hall of Fame.

He met composer Alec Wilder during production of a television show in the 1960s and began a song writing collaboration that lasted until Wilder's death in 1980. Together, they hosted the NPR radio show, "American Popular Song." The 56 episodes boosted the careers of many a musician. But the partnership with Wilder really set McGlohan's songwriting career in motion. They wrote 150 songs together, some for the likes of Frank Sinatra, who performed their work, "A Long Night."

Together they penned the jazz standard "Blackberry Winter," at last count recorded 42 times by artists as diverse as Rosemary Clooney, Marlena Shaw and opera star Eileen Farrell. McGlohan worked as Farrell's musical director for a decade.

Once, when the singer was working with McGhohan in his studio, his wife's childhood 98-year-old Nanny, Gladys was watching Carol Burnett with her ex charge in the McGlohan home. Burnett, asked who her favorite guests were, said, "Eileen Farrell." Gladys realized for the first time that the Eileen they knew was a singer. She went out to Loonis studio, and asked Farrell to sing something for her.

"Would you like to hear something Loonis wrote?" Farrell proceeded to do "Songbird," one of McGlohan's best known works. When she finished, Gladys said, "Oh, I don't like that kind of music Eileen."

Farrell asked her if she knew who Judy Garland was and proceeded to sing "Over the Rainbow." McGhohan, who revels in telling the story, notes, "Eileen, at the end, opened her voice very big, wide as a theater, then closed it back, showing not only breath, but voice and vibrato control. The performance was as magical as if it had been in Carnegie Hall. Usually, when Eileen did that, an audience would be just stunned for a few moments before breaking into wild applause." Gladys, however, simply said, "I never did like that song, Eileen."

Finally, Farrell asked, well, who do you like? Gladys said, "Well, there's this woman, she's a fat woman like you, and she does a song I like."

You talk to Loonis, he tells these stories about his heroes in a linked, ongoing stream. Moving from music to the national arena, he cites the late Charles Kuralt, who went from a reporter's job on the Charlotte News to international fame at NBC. Locally, McGlohan says, "No one in my lifetime has done more for this city than Hugh McColl." He admires Pete Sloan, who rose from peanut shell sweeper to CEO at Lance, and NationsBank/Bank of America's Joe Martin, among other local figures.

But when he realizes that he is himself a hero to young musicians, among others, it sincerely surprises him. When Spirit Square named its theater after him, McGlohan quipped, "You've given a wonderful place a name no one can pronounce."

Recently McGlohan received a CD in the mail from a pianist named Harry Pickens. "It's a wonderful CD, 'Live at Harry's Place,' but I didn't know why he sent it to me until I read the liner notes," Loonis told us.

There, Pickens noted, "The first professional musician I ever met was Loonis McGlohan, when I was in college in 1977, and I still have the letter he wrote encouraging me. This CD is for you Loonis."