Story about Davy Warwick

Songwriter who penned 9-11 tribute dies Monday

By JACK STALLARD

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Like many Americans, Davy Warwick was moved to tears when planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001.

Warwick, a late-budding songwriter who was 75 when the terrorists attacks happened, sat down and put his thoughts to words. His song "Angels Wings to Fly" wound up in the Library of Congress — one of 278 pieces chosen to be exhibited by the library relating to the events surrounding 911.

"He wasn't a veteran. He was an American," Toni Gebhardt said of her grandfather, who died Monday at the age of 80 — five years to the day after the attacks.

"He was really moved by the tragedy and that so many lives were lost. He was moved, and he wanted to memorialize it in some way. He was a ceramic mold maker, and he used to drive the roads a lot listening to music. He always said he could write a song, and he did."

Poems, songs, artworks and music poured in during the days and months after the attacks. From those tens of thousands of items, the Library of Congress selected less than 300 to be exhibited. Warwick, in a story published by the Longview News-Journal in 2002, said, "It took me 76 years to make my mark on this world, but I have done it now. This is something that does not happen every day."

Warwick's wife died in January, and while he and family members waited in the emergency room at a local hospital, he fell ill.

"They found a mass on his lung that day, and we found out he had terminal lung cancer," Gebhardt said. "We were hit double hard that day."

Warwick died at his residence in Overton.

"We kind of thought it was ironic but a little bit fitting," his daughter, Patricia Hill, said.

Hill said her father simply felt he needed to do something to memorialize those who lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001.

"The song was mostly dedicated to the firemen and the policemen who went into those buildings and knew they were risking their lives," Hill said. "He dedicated it to them. It was mostly about them, as well as just the terrible feeling people had watching this."

The song flowed from Warwick's heart to his pen quickly.

"I remember the (writing) process," she said. "It came to him quickly. He just felt it. He didn't start his song-writing career until he was in his 70s, and he was really heavy into it at that time. When he watched the news that day, he had a vision, sat down and wrote about it. He felt it deeply, and he said he cried while writing it."