Over-the-moon composerBart Howard

A composer, Howard wrote a number of memorable songs for singers like Peggy Lee, Eartha Kitt and Johnny Mathis. Of his best known song, it “just fell out of me,” he once said. “I’ve always said it took me 20 years to find out how to write a song in 20 minutes.” That song, which he titled “In Other Words” in 1954, was renamed “Fly Me to the Moon” and became a hit in 1960. In 1999 he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Howard died February 21 in New York after a stroke. He was 88.