Earl Paige, a beat reporter at Billboard for 27 years from 1966-to-1991, died on Sunday, May 8, of heart failure in Fillmore, Calif. He was 86. During his career at Billboard, Paige covered the retail/wholsesale sectors of the music and the home video industry, and crossed paths, and sometimes barbed swords with the famous, like John Lennon and Jesse Jackson, as well as the indie retailers running single stores. He never met a story that he wasn’t interested in and was known for turning out prodigious amounts of copy, every single day.
Source: Earl Paige, Veteran Billboard Reporter, Dies at 86 | Billboard