Music Reporter ‘Will Be Missed’
As a farm girl growing up in Illinois, Mary Campbell hid under the covers with the radio to listen to the late-night Big Band broadcasts from Chicago.
Saturday afternoons, she was transfixed by the Metropolitan Opera coming down the airwaves from far away New York City. Fridays, she’d be at the 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,” Ms. Campbell 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.”
Ms. Campbell also listened to country, bluegrass, jazz, swing, gospel and everything else she could tap her foot to. Her love of music has resulted in her telling millions of us, for four decades, about tenors with sore tonsils, divas on diets, old rockers who can still deliver the goods and nearly every musical artist of those past 40 years.
Now 66, The Associated Press’ music writer is retiring. There’s disbelief that a fixture at America’s cultural institutions will no longer take her usual seat - 10th row on the aisle - seven nights a week and twice on Sunday.
“Mary is a wonderful writer and a great friend. I’ll miss her work and seeing her around,” said the opera star Beverly Sills, now chairman of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
“It will be hard to think of The Associated Press without Mary Campbell on its staff,” said crooner Tony Bennett. “She has always been such a dedicated professional for them, and she’s such a wonderful lady. We’ll miss her here in New York.”
Colleagues feting her with farewell lunches - the musicians of the New York Philharmonic gave her a silver bracelet - worry she’ll go into musical withdrawal. But no, she says, she’s done enough, including interview just about everybody who’s anybody.
“I write for an ordinary person like me,” she 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.”
Her intelligent, no-frills AP reviews and feature stories have made her byline one of the nation’s best known. Many artists knew they’d “arrived” when Campbell interviewed them. For years, pianist Van Cliburn sent her a huge poinsettia at Christmas. Duke Ellington always called to say hello when he was in town.
“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,” said Placido Domingo. “I’ve sung and conducted (an orchestra) on the same day quite a number of times now, but the very first time I did it … she was the only one in the press who thought this was an interesting story.
“She stayed with me for 12 hours at the Met (Metropolitan Opera House). Since then, many other writers have followed me around on these kinds of occasions, but none of them did it as knowingly, from the musical standpoint, as Mary.”
Making notes on her program, night after night, decade after decade, Mary Campbell translated grand opera to the common person, shed light on the origins of our finest musicals and plays, made the artists come alive in our daily newspaper. She credits those under-the-covers childhood radio broadcasts with setting her on the right path, but it was her dedication that kept her there.
Now that there’s TV, CDs, videos and VCRs to record performances, Ms. Campbell said she’s not worried she’ll be culturally deprived when she leaves New York for Bloomington, Ind.
“There’s still those Saturday afternoon broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera,” she said. “I don’t have to go to the library to look up the stories any more. I know them by heart. As long as I can listen to the music, I’ll never be bored.”