East Coast producer Bill Langstroth of ‘Singalong Jubilee’ dies at 81
Posted May 9, 2013 12:17 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO – East Coast producer Bill Langstroth, who hosted the CBC-TV country music series “Singalong Jubilee” and was once married to country singer Anne Murray, has died.
His friend, musician/producer Ron MacNutt, says Langstroth died Wednesday afternoon in a Moncton hospital of an undisclosed illness. He was 81.
“He was very active,” the owner of Ron MacNutt Media Services said Thursday in a telephone interview.
“As an 81-year-old he was very full of life.”
Langstroth was raised in Montreal and started working at CBC-TV in Halifax in the 1950s, first as a co-ordinating producer and then as a series producer.
He worked on “The Don Messer Show” and “Singalong Jubilee,” where he first met Murray. The two dated for many years and married in ’75.
Langstroth and Murray had two children together, William and Dawn, and divorced in ’98.
He eventually re-married and he and Fran Langstroth lived in Malagash, N.S., until a few months ago when they moved to Sackville, N.B.
MacNutt, who lives in Wallace, N.S., said he last saw Langstroth a month ago when he returned to the province to help produce a project for local guitarist Ken Enman.
“He slid right back into his role — he showed up with a stopwatch and a clipboard, which of course were tools of the trade several years ago, and he was utterly amazed by what could be done with technology now,” said MacNutt.
“He was one of those eager life-long learners and I’m sure if we’d had a little bit more time on our hands he would he have grabbed the mouse and learned the new way of doing editing — and then, look out!”
In 2011, Langstroth was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of fame.
MacNutt said in recent years, Langstroth and Fran were on the road a lot, attending several music camps.
“He was still eagerly learning about music and he’d taken up the ukulele the last few years,” said MacNutt.
“Whatever he could do that tickled his fancy, he was up for it.”
MacNutt said a funeral will be held Sunday afternoon in Sackville, N.B.
