Back in the early 1980’s, Naked Lunch author William S. Burroughs grinned across the screen on Saturday Night Live, having just been introduced as the greatest living writer in America by supermodel Lauren Hutton. Usually writers don’t read from their work on television, but behind the scenes, Hal Willner made it happen. Willner, beloved music producer is best known for his work with musicians, but he was always literary, and he loved the Beat writers, and made recordings with Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Robert Wilson, who had collaborated with Burroughs and Tom Waits on The Black Rider. When his longtime friend Lou Reed died, he produced the memorial event for him at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Now it is Hal we will have to mourn: he died on April 7 at age 64.

Here is a glimpse of Hal Willner at work on one of his productions:

It was always Howdy Doody time in music producer Hal Willner’s workspace at the Film Center building in Manhattan. Best known for producing music for SNL, Willner shares his lair with many antique puppets, Jackie Gleason memorabilia including a Ralph Cramden bus driver’s suit, as well as DVD’s of Shoah and other Holocaust films. He jokes, “My work sounds like a Warner Brothers cartoon or the soundtrack to a movie about Dachau. No middle shit.”

The ability to live comfortably with these juxtapositions may be why he was tapped to work on the Jazz Foundation of America’s annual benefit at the Apollo Theater in 2013, his third year in a row. Celebrating Quincy Jones’ birthday, and offering tribute to people who are about to leave us, like Clark Terry, the evening featured Elvis Costello, Paul Schaffer, Macy Gray, and many others. Jeffrey Wright introduced an act or two.

Willner explains his vision: “Last year we had Darrel Hammond and Triumph the Insult Dog, with Bono and Randy Weston. I love bringing mainstream comedians together with music. If you are doing a show, you want to expose people to more than what they like and know. To make an impact, they have to have a moment to think, what the hell is this? I like to bring that element in. Macy Gray doing an Ike & Tina tune. Chad Smith from The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Henry Butler from New Orleans. We’re going to have a slightly smaller show than past but everyone will do more.”

Says Willner: “I love charities where it’s not about saving the world; it’s about saving a neighbor, helping uninsured, artists who are broke because their managers ripped them off, or paying for Odetta’s funeral. It’s helping people we know, people who have given their lives to this music.”

Hal Willner had many more shows to do. This week he fretted over others who were sick, Marianne Faithfull and John Prine, who died the same day as Hal. R. I. P.