Hugh Wyatt, Formerly Of Sag Harbor, Dies August 12 - 27 East
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Obituaries / Southampton Press / 1807945

Hugh Wyatt, Formerly Of Sag Harbor, Dies August 12

author27east on Aug 16, 2021

Hugh Wyatt, formerly of Sag Harbor, died on August 12. He was 78.

Mr. Wyatt, a former music columnist and health editor for the New York Daily News, and the author of a spiritual biography of jazz great Sonny Rollins, died at the Dawn Greene Hospice in Manhattan. His wife, Linda Edkins Wyatt, said that the cause was metastasized prostate cancer.

Mr. Wyatt, who was of Black and Native American ancestry, was born in Atlanta, but moved to New York City in 1965 after serving three years in the U.S. Army.

Starting out as a copy boy, he subsequently became the first reporter of color for the New York Daily News. He was named health affairs editor in 1979, and later wrote a popular weekly music column, which became syndicated. Mr. Wyatt’s wife Linda said that, with a series of articles for the Daily News, Mr. Wyatt was also instrumental in New York State’s establishing an official definition of death, among his many other achievements. (He wrote the liner notes for the 1984 recording, “New York Scene” by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, which won a Grammy.)

After leaving the Daily News, Mr. Wyatt founded The Medical Herald, which he described as “a national urban medical newspaper,” and The Spiritual Herald, both of which he was editor and publisher.

Mr. Wyatt later authored “Phoebe’s Fantasy: The Story of a Mafia Insider Who Helped Rescue Jazz,” and “Sonny Rollins: Meditating on a Riff,” both published by Kamama Books, the company Mr. Wyatt started in 2016. Mr. Wyatt often spoke of his friendship with the tenor saxophonist, whom he met in Greenwich Village in the 1960s.

Mr. Wyatt was also a founding stockholder of the Inner City Broadcasting Corporation, which owned WBLS-FM radio and the Apollo Theatre in New York City.

Known by his friends for his ebullient personality and his exclamations of “Rock and roll!” when he was excited about something, Mr. Wyatt is survived by his wife; his daughter, Amanda; as well as a brother and a sister.

The family divided its time for many years between midtown Manhattan and Sag Harbor. Lamented his wife, Linda, “We still expect him to burst through the door, full of energy and ideas.”

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