Bill Crofut; Played Bach to Blues on Banjo

Bill Crofut, 64, who recorded more than 20 albums from Bach to blues. A banjo player since 1955, Crofut performed in coffeehouses and clubs with a high school friend. He gained prominence after Adlai Stevenson asked the duo to play at the United Nations. Crofut composed their offering, a parody about President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, to the tune of “The 12 Days of Christmas.” Crofut went on to record folk duets with British baritone Benjamin Luzon and banjo renditions of the music of Brahms, Mozart and Schumann. On Monday in Sandisfield, Mass., of cancer.

Jimmy Day; Noted Steel Guitarist

Jimmy Day, 65, steel guitarist who worked with Willie Nelson. Day was inducted into the International Steel Guitar Hall of Fame, the Texas Steel Guitar Hall of Fame and the Texas Western Swing Hall of Fame. He performed on Nelson’s classic album “Shotgun Willie.” Day first became popular in 1956, when he played steel guitar with Ray Price on the hit “Crazy Arms.” One of the most in-demand musicians in Nashville, Day also played on such hit records as Price’s “Heartaches by the Number” and “City Lights,” and Charlie Walker’s “Pick Me Up on Your Way Down.” On Jan. 22 in Nashville of cancer.

John DeWitt; Broadcast Industry Pioneer

John DeWitt Jr., 92, who expanded the frontiers of science by bouncing a radar signal off the moon. DeWitt, a broadcasting pioneer, conceived that idea in 1940 as an amateur astronomer. He noted in a diary that reflecting ultrashort waves from the moon “would open up wide possibilities for the study of the upper atmosphere . . . [and] may open up a new method of world communication.” He made his first experiment with a transmitter and receiver he had developed for radio station WGN in Chicago while working there as an engineer. DeWitt distinguished himself during World War II by developing radar for locating mortars and directing counterfire when he served as lieutenant colonel in the Signal Corps. Awaiting discharge after the war, he successfully bounced radar waves off the moon and back to Earth on Jan. 25, 1946. He then returned to Nashville and installed transmitters for new radio stations including WSM, which broadcast the Grand Ole Opry. Eventually DeWitt became president of WSM. On Monday in Nashville.

Sister Enda Doherty; Longtime Educator in L.A.

Sister Enda Doherty, 97, Catholic educator in Los Angeles for six decades. Named after an Irish scholar and saint, Sister Enda belonged to the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart and taught children from elementary through high school for 62 years in the Los Angeles diocese. She was a principal at several schools, including Blessed Sacrament and St. Bernardine, was a master teacher and taught psychology at Immaculate Heart College. The daughter of Irish Catholic immigrants, Sister Enda was the eldest of six children, all of whom chose religious life. The five daughters became nuns--all educators--and the only son chose the priesthood. Their extraordinary service to the archdiocese of Los Angeles, totaling 300 years, was recognized in 1997 when Sister Enda and two of her siblings, Sisters Eileen and Mary Michael, received the Cardinal’s Award, the only nuns ever so honored. Sister Eileen, who led the Immaculate Heart sisters, died last year at age 88. Sister Enda is survived by Sister Mary Michael, 96, and Msgr. John B. Doherty, 86. On Jan. 23 in Los Angeles of a stroke.

James M. Domengeaux; Grammy-Nominated Guitarist

James M. Domengeaux, 44, guitarist with the Grammy-nominated band Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys. A musician since age 6, Domengeaux was known for his versatile guitar playing. He rose to prominence in the late 1970s and early ‘80s with Black Dog, a band that fused rock and “swamp” pop. But he hit his stride with Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys, whose sound made them mainstays on the international festival circuit. The group performed worldwide, won numerous awards from the Cajun French Music Assn. and was nominated for a Grammy in 1993. On Monday in New Iberia, La., of injuries in a motorcycle accident.

Sara Wells Jones; Musician, Mother of Quincy

Sara Wells Jones, 94, founder of the Seattle Religious Art Society and mother of composer, arranger and music impresario Quincy Jones. Jones was born in Vicksburg, Miss., one of 10 children of Mary Bell and Love Adam Wells, a sharecropper. After attending Boston University’s College of Practical Arts and Sciences, she moved to Chicago in the 1930s and became a founding board member of the Federal Savings and Loan Corp., a black-owned bank. There she met a young carpenter named Quincy Jones and had two children: Lloyd, a pioneer African American radio and television engineer in Seattle, and Quincy Jr., who along with being a noted jazz musician produced such hits as “Thriller” and “We Are the World.” In 1943, Jones moved to Seattle, where she founded the Seattle Religious Art Society, which sponsored concerts and offered educational opportunities for youths. She was a pianist, spoke several languages and was a master typist and stenographer, once typing the entire New Testament as a gift to her children. In addition to Quincy Jr., she is survived by a sister, Mabel Dulaney; another son, George Ferris; eight grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. In Seattle of a stroke on Jan. 22.

Rev. Walter Donald Kring; Unitarian Minister, Melville Expert

The Rev. Walter Donald Kring, 82, a clergyman who became an expert on author Herman Melville. Born in Lakewood, Ohio, Kring graduated from Occidental College and Harvard Divinity School and was a Navy chaplain during World War II. He led All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City for 23 years, and the Eliot Church in Natick, N.Y., for 20 years. Kring wrote histories and biographies, including a three-volume work about All Souls, founded in 1819, and the books “Henry Whitney Bellows” and “Herman Melville’s Religious Journey.” While researching Bellows, the 19th century pastor of All Souls, Kring came across letters that confirmed rumors that Melville was a wife beater and child abuser. The discovery prompted Kring to continue research into Melville, and in 1979 he was elected the first nonacademic president of the Melville Society. Kring also served as president of the Beacon Press of Boston, secretary of the American Unitarian Assn. and president of the Harvard Divinity School Alumni Assn. and the Unitarian-Universalist Historical Society. On Jan. 15 in East Brookfield, Mass.

Philip Mason; British Historian, Biographer

Philip Mason, 92, British historian and biographer. Mason was a former British civil servant in India whose two-volume work “The Men Who Ruled India,” published in 1953, established him as a leading British-Indian historian. A graduate of Oxford University, Mason was posted to India by the British government in 1928 and served in various positions, including deputy-secretary and joint secretary to the government, over the next 20 years. After he returned to Britain, he wrote almost a book a year until 1962. Among his later books was a 1975 biography of Rudyard Kipling, “Kipling: The Glass, the Shadow and the Fire,” praised in The Times for its eloquence and complex understanding of the writer’s character. In Cambridge, England, on Monday.