"I have a producer who looks like an accountant and an accountant who looks like a producer," John Denver described Okun.
Legendary producer Milton "Milt" Okun, who produced for John Denver and Peter, Paul and Mary and founded the highly successful Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company, has died. He was 92. Okun has been called one of the most important music producers of all time.
Once a child prodigy pianist, Okun suffered nephritis in his early teens. At a time before antibiotics, he was bedridden for two years and on recovery found that his gift of virtuosic playing was gone. After studying music and conducting at Oberlin, he became a music teacher in the New York public school system at the advice of conductor Dean Dixon until his love of folk music brought him to back to the music business as a singer, arranger and conductor with Harry Belafonte and the Harry Belafonte Singers.
"I have a producer who looks like an accountant and an accountant who looks like a producer," Denver described Okun.