About the author
Lyle Greenfield was born in Rochester, New York where he was raised Catholic and attended St. Margaret Mary grade school. He went to Confession every two weeks and each time confessed the same sins.
Lyle received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Bowling Green University. He wrote a weekly humor column for the student newspaper and syndicated it to fifteen other college papers. (His heroes were the columnists Art Buchwald and Russell Baker.) He began his career in New York City as a copywriter for the ad agency J. Walter Thompson, later moving to Saatchi as creative director on the Jeep account.
In 1980 Lyle purchased a low-lying plot of farmland in Bridgehampton, Long Island and planted a vineyard. He then built The Bridgehampton Winery, the first winery in the Hamptons, but after a 15-year battle between climate and site, the vineyard failed; not, however, before its winemaker, Richard Olsen-Harbich, had won over 100 awards for the wines in National and International competitions. (The winery closed in 1995 and is now home of the South Fork Natural History Museum.)
In 1989, Lyle started Bang Music in New York, a company that today provides original music and audio services across all broadcast media. He is a founding member and former president of the Association of Music Producers (AMP) and co-creator of the AMP Awards for Music and Sound.
Lyle is a frequent contributor to the ad and entertainment industry magazine SHOOT, writing about music and popular culture. He is also a somewhat notorious writer of letters to The East Hampton Star, a selection of which appears in this volume. He resides with his wife, Mary Jane Hantz Greenfield, in Amagansett and New York City.