Irwin Stambler

Eclectic writer toggled between love of aeronautics and music

Irwin Stambler, who was trained as an aeronautics engineer but whose deep love for music inspired him to write The Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock and Soul — a major feat of research before the internet made it easier to find out more about Bo Diddley or the Beach Boys — died 10 February in Los Angeles. He was 92.

His son Lyndon that said the cause was complications of sepsis. Stambler’s encyclopedia, published by St. Martin’s Press in 1974, covered a wide swath of music history, from acid rock to the Zombies, in an easy-to-read style.

His entry about singer Marianne Faithfull, for example, called her the “daugh- ter of a baroness and blessed with the face of an angel (some observers said a fallen angel),” and added that she was “well educated in convent schools, but the sheltered atmosphere of those years probably contributed to her desire to kick over the traces.”

Stambler’s book was not the first of its kind. It was preceded by Lillian Roxon’s Rock Encyclopedia, published by Grosset & Dunlap in 1969.

Stambler toggled regularly between science and music throughout his career. He worked as an engineer into the 1950s — designing aircraft parts, among other assignments .

He wrote for magazines like Space Aeronautics. He wrote newsletters. And he wrote dozens of books on subjects as diverse as the space programme and the fastest humans.

While Stambler was researching his pop music encyclopedia, he scheduled an interview with songwriter Jimmy van Heusen in Palm Springs, California, during time off from an aerospace meeting nearby. Van Heusen kept filling Stambler’s glass with expensive whiskey while they talked.

“To this day, I can’t recall how I got back to my car,” Stambler wrote. ©New York Times 2017. Distributed by NYT Syndication Service