Talk:Donald Wolf (lyricist)

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Is Don still with us?

Any info on whether Donald Wolf is still alive, and any other biographical detail, would be very useful! I'd guess that he was born in the 1920's.

The Roy Lichtenstein site mentions his having a jazz-playing friend Don Wolf, which may be a coincidence of course. More digging required. Batternut (talk) 18:12, 9 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Donald Wolf redirects to USS Donald W. Wolf. Please

The Main namespace article Donald Wolf, currently pointing to the US navy ship USS Donald W. Wolf, will I think end up being replaced. I suspect relatively few mentions of "Donald Wolf" refer to the ship, but this article could have a hatnote to that article, or a DAB page.

Even if this article gets renamed to either "Don Wolf" or "Donald E. Wolf", a DAB page would still be required. Batternut (talk) 00:08, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

User:Batternut - I have put a hatnote on this page. If this draft is accepted, the redirect can be deleted because the hatnote will take its place. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:23, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's a good solution. Batternut (talk) 11:59, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Notability

I have added perhaps the most easily demonstrable claim of notability to the lead section, ie his lyrics for "Azure Te" which reached #30 in the Billboard Hot 100 in 1952, and have improved its references. This I would think would satisfy point 1 of WP:Notability (music)#Criteria for composers and lyricists, ie credit for this lyrics of a notable composition. One might argue that Manhatten Transfer's Grammy for "Until I Met You (Corner Pocket)" might demonstrate notability under point 3 "had a work used as the basis for a later composition ..." despite the substantial changes that they made to the lyrics, but to me the stronger claims would be (a) the "Azure Te" lyrics and (b) the extent of his lyrics used in 300+ recorded works.

Robert McClenon's comment "they do not show significant coverage" is not unreasonable, ie I have not yet found a lot that has been written about Wolf. But the lead section of WP:Notability says the topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets either the general notability guideline or the subject-specific notability guideline, and I'd think WP:Notability (music) has been met.

Considering the "insufficient verifiable material" note under the "Criteria for composers and lyricists", an alternative approach could be to create an article for Azure Te, which for a #30 song should be accepted, and to merge details of Wolf and his other works there. However, the "known for multiple works" caveat might apply, so would that mean neither a dedicated article for Wolf and his works, nor covering him under Azure Te, or tolerating a not-very-detailed dedicated article?

Any advice welcome. Thanks, Batternut (talk) 12:09, 19 June 2021 (UTC) (moved from User talk:Robert McClenon/Archive 34#AfC Donald Wolf)[reply]

WP:Notability is a bit confusing since we do typically require the GNG to be met regardless of whether a SNG is met (there's a few limited topic areas where that's not the case, but music/biographies aren't one of them.) I did several searches on newspapers.com but not only could I not find anything on him (the only musician I found was clearly a different Don Wolf), the phrase "Azure Te" comes up mostly in relation to a 1960s racehorse. We'd need more significant coverage of him, I'm afraid, but I don't know how to get there for this article. SportingFlyer T·C 13:18, 19 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I did quite a bit more digging on Azure Te and found enough for a dedicated article. More digging on Don Wolf brought his number of top 100 US hits to five, the best peaking at #15, and one of them also charting in the UK, and some more bio though still not much. He mostly crops up in the music press, ie Billboard and Cash-box. Batternut (talk) 13:47, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

AfD submission to discuss deletion or merger

I am going to (try to) move this draft to main namespace, and then AfD it to provide a focussed discussion on merging this bio into an article on one of his songs, or simple deletion. Batternut (talk) 08:49, 7 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

AfD deletion discussion page created at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Donald Wolf (lyricist). I hope I'm not overly bending the system with this approach! Batternut (talk) 09:36, 7 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What the heck? Why is this like this?

OK, we've got this lyricist, Donald Wolf (also credited as Donald E. Wolf and Don Wolf), said to be the lyricist for over 300 recordings, including a number of top 100 songs. And he's somehow only notable enough for a paragraph in the article about one of those songs? Batternut, SportingFlyer, I don't think this turned out how it should have. Is there another discussion somewhere about Wolf's apparent lack of sufficient notability? --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 06:16, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jpgordon: I have absolutely no idea how I found this article to comment on as it's been over three years now, but it looks like Wolf was created, went to AfD, was withdrawn by the nominator, and then was merged and redirected by the nominator on the same day. I will note I found no sources that would support a stand alone article on him either in the current article or in a cursory WP:BEFORE search. SportingFlyer T·C 07:33, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In what way is a stand alone article not supported? Perhaps more research needs to be done, but Batternut did a ton of research on the guy; what more proof of existence of this hit-writing lyricist does an article need? I'm only here because I'm performing one of his hits, and I like to talk about the songwriters. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 08:20, 8 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jpgordon: There's just not much information out there that's specifically about him from what I can find. SportingFlyer T·C 00:28, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Right, but that means we'll have trouble filling out an article; it doesn't mean we shouldn't have the article. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 01:33, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well - not necessarily. The problem is that Wikipedia's standards require the person to have been covered directly by secondary sources. I'm not seeing that, and Batternut even asked for an opinion on what to do in the situation where those sources don't exist and this was a compromise. You're welcome to try, but I cannot guarantee he would be eligible for a stand-alone article. SportingFlyer T·C 02:03, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]