Bart Howard, the composer of “Fly Me to the Moon” and of cabaret songs recorded by Mabel Mercer, Johnny Mathis and many others, has died in Carmel, N.Y. He was 88.
The cause of his death Saturday was complications from a stroke, said his companion of 58 years, Thomas Fowler.
Mr. Howard’s signature song, originally titled “In Other Words,” was introduced in 1954 by cabaret singer Felicia Sanders. Its popularity spread after Peggy Lee sang it on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1960, and it became a hit in a 1962 bossa nova instrumental version by Lee’s conductor, Joe Harnell.
“I’ve always said it took me 20 years to find out how to write a song in 20 minutes,” Mr. Howard recalled in 1988. “The song just fell out of me. One publisher wanted me to change the lyric to `take me to the moon.’ Had I done that I don’t know where I’d be today.”
Born Howard Joseph Gustafson in Burlington, Iowa, Mr. Howard left home at 16 to be a pianist in a dance band that toured with the conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton.
From 1951 to 1959 Mr. Howard was the master of ceremonies and intermission pianist at the stylish New York nightclub the Blue Angel, where he introduced Eartha Kitt, Johnny Mathis, Dorothy Loudon and others. His latter-day muse was KT Sullivan, who recorded a live album of his songs in 1997. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1999.
His other widely recorded songs included “Let Me Love You” and “Don’t Dream of Anybody but Me” (to a tune by Neal Hefti).
