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Bill Hanley |
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The Father of Festival Sound |
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Woodstock / Powder Ridge! - Newport - Fillmore E. - The Bitter End - Vietnam Protests - South Afrika
...are you looking for Terry Hanley Audio Systems (THAS) ?
acts in Bill's career scrapbook include... The Band, Joan Baez, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Blood, Sweat & Tears, James Brown, Buffalo Springfield, Joe Cocker, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Duke Ellington, Connie Francis, Country Joe MacDonald, Taj Mahal, Dizzie Gillespie The Grateful Dead, Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens, Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin , Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Peter. Paul, & Mary, Andy Pratt, Rolling Stones, Melanie, Andy Pratt, Ravi Shankar, John Sebastian, Santana, Barbra Streisand, Lawrence Welk, The Who, Johnny and Edgar Winter, Neil Young . . . ...and (at least) thousands more. |
125th AES Convention in New York, 2008
photo: Freeman Z |
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August 13, 2009:
Hanley Speaks on Woodstock '69
at Arlington's
Regent Theater
Sound Engineering Pioneer Bill Hanley, a recipient of the Parnelli Award for Audio Innovation, will speak on a panel, answering questions about the Woodstock experience, from his choice of the Festival site to planning, building and operating the custom-built sound system designed for 200,000.
Woodstock 40th Anniversary |
George Wein's "Folk Festival
50" |
| Bill Hanley designed, built and operated the Woodstock sound system. Here's the story... | Bill Hanley began mixing sound for the Newport Connecticut Folk and Jazz Festivals In 1957 (...more) |
As Chief Sound Engineer for George Wein's Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals, The Fillmore East, Woodstock, and The Bitter End, and in his innumerable other projects, Bill Hanley has always been committed to making a better world through sound. In an era when concert promoters didn't care about sonic fidelity, Bill revolutionized live sound. He's credited with many innovations, particularly in the outdoor "festival" sound industry. These include the modern wedge monitor and the multicore "snake" connecting stages to consoles. He continues to work in the sound and stage industry with his brother Terry and son Joe. Bill lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Rhoda.
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- Woodstock / Powder Ridge - Newport - Fillmore E. - The Bitter End - Vietnam Protests - South Afrika -
Looking for Terry Hanley Audio Systems ?
Elmore Magazine Interview: Bill Hanley
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When you’re starting
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June 1965, Shea Stadium, NY
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Joe Hanley
Joe Hanley prepares one of Hanley Audio's forty foot tall trailer-mounted hydraulic speaker towers for transit to a half-million dollar fund-raising festival. New Yorkers might recognize these from their role in the Metropolitan Opera's acoustic arsenal. You can see them in place on a job here. |
Bill's son Joe Hanley is a pro sound engineer and a certified crane operator. He runs his own small business. Joe still works, from time to time, both with Bill and Bill's brother Terry Hanley, of T.H.A.S. in Woburn, Massachusetts, who provides sound and stage services, mostly around New England. |
From South Africa...
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(a.k.a. David Marks of the Woodstock '68 Sound Team) |
Where's Bill?
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Bill continues to work in the sound and stage industry. He can be found working in his own metal shop improving his hydraulic stage and roof system. In 2008, Bill recorded at a private club where he and his wife, Rhoda, go to dance. first he goes out and got starts poking at the ceiling tiles, which ruffled somebody, but he got over it. Then he returns, this time with a tall ladder and and some six foot lengths of threaded steel rod, some clamps, brackets and hardware, and within an hour the room's little loudspeakers are perched perfectly on flat steel, tilting toward the reflective dance floor by virtue of the slight bend induced in the threaded steel by gravity. Here's a page with a song from the band and some pictures. |
