Norman Knuth Obituary, Death – Norman Knuth has passed away unexpectedly. In 1954, he married Dolores Gallupoli in Garfield Heights. On May 3, Gertrude (Mueller) and Arno Knuth gave birth to him in Cleveland, Ohio. He was a well-known musician and bandleader. When Norman was a kid, he used to run a wire from his homemade crystal set all the way up to the top of the silo through the window of his second-story bedroom. He’d spend the entire night listening to radio broadcasts of bands performing in hotels and ballrooms. He had a love of music that sustained him throughout his life.
Norm performed with a jazz combo in the Army at various venues such as service and officers clubs, as well as camp shows. While his friends ran across the practice field, he listened to swing music on his record player. According to his colonel, the accordion was more important to the boys’ morale at the time than a machine gun. Norm hosted his own radio show, “Starlite Time,” on WGAR-CBS from 1950 to 1954. It aired once a day on a local station and once a week on Saturday mornings on the CBSA network. In 1954, he was appointed musical director of the WTAM-NBC Orchestra for the show “Mayer and Co.” Norm hosted one of the last staff radio shows in the United States in 1964, which featured “live” music. Norm and his wife Dee relocated to the Palm Beach Coast of Florida in 1985.
Norm met and collaborated with some incredible musicians while in Florida. He reformed his own orchestra and began performing again at various resort hotels and exclusive clubs. Norm and Dee spent their final days together at a lakeside cottage in Ohio. He spent his time there listening to the hundreds of tapes made of his performances and radio shows. He is survived by his wife, Dolores Knuth of Roaming Shores, Ohio; daughter, Karen (Cit) Cameron of Austinburg; grandson, Ryan Czerwonko of Athens, Ohio; sister, Jean Hendel of Lakewood, Ohio; and brothers, Robert Knuth and Robert Knuth Jr. of Lakewood, Ohio. Both his parents and his older brother, David, died before him.
