Steve Goodman's handcrafted, melodic folk style blended engaging earnestness with inimitable wit. Goodman's macabre (yet ever upbeat) humor was certainly informed by the ever-looming spectre of mortality; he was diagnosed with leukemia in 1969, just as he was beginning to make his name in Chicago folk circles. While he was a Windy City legend beloved by critics, commercial success eluded him. His greatest success came as a songwriter; the artful novelty song "You Never Even Called Me by My Name" gave David Allen Coe his first charting single, while the haunting paean to the dying railroad, "City of New Orleans," became Arlo Guthrie's biggest hit and a veritable American standard. He was also instrumental in the early career of John Prine. In 1984, Goodman died at age 36.