Harold Wheeler, veteran Broadway arranger and longtime musical director for ABC dancing with the stars, He died. He was 83 years old.
Wheeler died Wednesday of an undetermined cause of death at his home in Los Angeles, Tony Award-winning producer Lamar Richardson said. Hollywood Reporter.
Wheeler began his work as a musical director on Broadway in 1968 when, at just 25 years old, Burt Bacharach chose him to orchestrate the musical. Promises, promises. His work as an arranger, music director, conductor, and orchestrator spanned half a century on Broadway and included work on… Ain’t So Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations.
Includes Broadway musical premieres in which he participated Two gentlemen of Verona, Wiz, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, Dream girls, Little Me, Baby tap dancing, curry, life, Side view, Full monty, Hairspray, Dirty rotten bastards and Hugh Jackman: Return to Broadway
In addition to his Broadway work, Wheeler has arranged and produced music for such artists as Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Nina Simone, B.B. King, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Ray Charles, Kathleen Battle, Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Joe Cocker, Dizzy Gillespie and Gloria Gaynor.
In 2019, Wheeler received a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement. “I was going to thank every cast member for every show I was in, until I realized I had done 30 shows on Broadway,” he said on stage when accepting his award.
In a 2010 interview with New York PostWheeler recalls Boston’s quick cancellation of Lennona 2005 Broadway-bound musical that he arranged, allowed him to say yes to joining Dancing with the stars.
“During the six-week cancellation period I got a call to work on it [the] displays. If Boston hadn’t been cancelled, I would have said, “Sorry, unavailable” and we wouldn’t have had this discussion. They shot the pilot Dance During the same six weeks we were in Boston. “It was meant to be that way,” Wheeler recalls.
Wheeler, his band and backing singers were fired in 2014 by ABC, to be replaced by recorded music and a smaller band. The Harold Wheeler Orchestra and Singers consists of 28 members and has been on the show for 17 seasons.
Weller also played piano for Bruce Springsteen on “Blinded by the Light” and “Spirit in the Night” on the 1973 album. Greetings from Asbury Park, New Jersey
His other awards include the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestration for Hairspray In 2003, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the NAACP Theater Awards in 2008, seven Tony nominations and six Drama Desk nominations.
William Harold Wheeler Jr. was born in St. Louis on July 14, 1943. Starting at the age of five, he played piano at Antioch Baptist Church, where members included Chuck Berry and Ike and Tina Turner. He attended Turner Branch Elementary School, Sumner High School, and Howard University before earning a Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music in 1968.
From 1968 to 1971, he worked as assistant program director for CBS-FM in New York.
It was at Howard that Wheeler met his wife, Hattie Winston, an original member of the pioneering Negro Ensemble also known for her work on Baker, Electricity company and Rugrats. They met when Wheeler was her substitute music teacher’s student.
They collaborated on the 1971-1973 Broadway production of Two gentlemen of Verona Before agreeing to marriage.
In addition to his wife, Wheeler is survived by his daughters, Marian and Samantha, and grandchildren.
