[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 115 (Thursday, September 4, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1655]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO LEGH KNOWLES

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                       HON. GEORGE P. RADANOVICH

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 4, 1997

  Mr. RADANOVICH. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, Mr. Riggs, and I would 
like to give our condolences and respect on the passing of Leh Knowles, 
who died on August 15 in Napa, CA. Once a trumpet player in the Glenn 
Miller Orchestra, Legh went on to become an accomplished and passionate 
representative of the wine industry, and chairman of California's 
famous Beaulieu Vineyard in the Napa Valley. Legh lived a wonderful and 
productive life, which will be admired for years to come. He will be 
remembered and missed by his friends and loved ones, and by his peers 
who knew his passion for life and his fellow man.
  Below is a tribute to Legh written by Frank Prial of the New York 
Times on August 19, offering a kind and appropriate gesture.

                [From the New York Times, Aug. 19, 1997]

          Legh Knowles Is Dead at 78; Trumpeter Headed Winery

                          (By Frank J. Prial)

       Legh Knowles, a trumpet player in the Glenn Miller 
     Orchestra who went on to become chairman of Beaulieu 
     Vineyard, one of California's most famous wineries, and a 
     passionate spokesman for all California wines, died on Friday 
     at a convalescent residence near his home in Napa, Calif. He 
     was 78.
       The cause of death was cancer of the esophagus, said his 
     wife, Margaret.
       Legh (pronounced lee) Knowles entered the wine business as 
     a complete neophyte: just out of the Air Force in 1948, he 
     answered an advertisement from the California Wine Advisory 
     Board, a trade organization, for someone to promote 
     California wines.
       ``I didn't know anything about wine,'' he recalled in a 
     1986 interview, ``but they wanted someone who could stand up 
     before large crowds,'' and, as a big-band trumpeter, ``I'd 
     done a lot of that.''
       Mr. Knowles played with a number of big bands at various 
     times before entering the service in 1942, but he always 
     looked back on his days with Glenn Miller as the peak of his 
     musical career.
       ``In 1939, we played 359 nights,'' he once said. ``I can't 
     remember what I did with the other 6.''
       The nomadic life of a musician prepared him well for the 
     wine business. He moved 13 times in his first 10 years in the 
     business, as spokesman or salesman, and then spent much of 
     the rest of his life on the road.
       From the California Wine Advisory Board, Mr. Knowles went 
     to the Taylor Wine Company in New York. And from there, he 
     joined the E. & J. Gallo Winery in California in 1958 for 
     four years of what he later called the toughest and best 
     training he ever had.
       ``Gallo salesmen had a saying,'' he recalled. `` `We don't 
     want most of the business; we want it all.' ''
       In 1962, Mr. Knowles moved on to Beaulieu Vineyard, in 
     Rutherford, Calif., in the Napa Valley. It was the golden age 
     of Beaulieu, which was still owned by the family of Georges 
     de Latour, the elegant Frenchman who had founded it at the 
     turn of the century. When Mr. Knowles arrived, Andre 
     Tchelistcheff was making the wine, and the winery's principal 
     label, Georges de Latour Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, 
     was widely considered the best made in America.
       Beaulieu was sold to Heublein Inc. in 1969, and despite his 
     prickly relations with Heublein executives in Connecticut--he 
     called them bean counters--Mr. Knowles became the winery's 
     vice president and general manager that year. He was 
     appointed president in 1975 and chairman in 1982. In 1987, 
     the Napa Valley Vintners Association named him one of the 
     Valley's 12 ``living legends,'' a group that included Robert 
     Mondavi, Peter Mondavi, Louis P. Martini and Hanns Kornell.
       Mr. Knowles, a native of Bethel, Conn., took to the trumpet 
     as a small boy and was hired at the age of 12 to play in a 
     local jazz band. During the big-band era he played first with 
     Red Norvo and Mildred Bailey, then with Glenn Miller and 
     later with Charlie Spivak and his orchestra. He made 122 
     records with the Miller band, including ``In the Mood,'' its 
     signature recording.
       Besides his wife, he leaves a daughter, Barbara Pinches of 
     New Rochelle, N.Y.; a brother, Robert; a sister, Bernice 
     Scott, and two grandchildren.

     

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