Bill Hanley
Trivia
| Bill
Hanley is still working in live sound and stage at 70. He's
learning digital recording and production. |
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Bill
was
fired by singer Connie
Francis, the top-charting
female artist of the 1960s, for growing his hair too long.
(...
So who's
sorry now?) |
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| Bill's brother Terry
designed, built and sold a revolutionary headset system that
appeared in many sound contract specifications, including Bill's
contract to amplify President Lyndon
B. Johnson's Inauguration. |
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| Years
after executing the Johnson
inauguration sound, Bill toured with the Nixon-Agnew campaign
before engineering Woodstock and
several major Peace Rallies. |
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| After
managing the eastern portion of their 1967 tour, (including
the legendary Shea stadium screaming teen fiasco) Bill passed
up an offer to work with the Beatles at Abbey Road studios
in Fabulous London. |
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| Bill
was twice arrested in his role as a sound engineer; at L.B.J.'s
inauguration, and after Woodstock, at Powder
Ridge, (a people-versus-the
government story that's worthy of study.) |
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| Bill
has been mentioned in many newspapers, the New York
Times and Esquire, which called him one of the most important
people in rock and roll. |
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| Bill
was first to combine "wedge" stage monitors and directional
mics as a low-feedback monitor system; was first to build and
use a multicore microphone snake; and first to fly (hang) loudspeakers
(for the Rolling Stones) using electric chain-motors. All of
these methods are now taken for granted on a modern stage. |
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Bill
designed and built the 56 foot-wide Magic
Stage. It can be erected by one person in thirty minutes. |
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In
trhe 70's Bill appeared in newspapers again, after interfering
with an armed hijacker on a flying jetliner. |
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| Bill's
recording credits include the Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals,
the Fillmore East and Woodstock. |
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| Bill
worked with Brad Little on a helmet-mounted speaker-horn array
and low-voltage amplifier system used for peace rallies and
marches during the American war on Vietnam. "...so the cops
couldn't steal the sound." (Hanley's father was a police Lieutenant.) |
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Bill
was at the helm in 1965 when Dylan plugged in his electric
guitar at George Wein's Newport Folk Festival, causing a
"riot." |
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| Bill
was at work in June of 1972, when before his eyes, crime family
boss Joseph Colombo was critically wounded by a gunman at a
rally. |
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| Bill keeps two forty-foot, trailer-mounted,
hydraulic loudspeaker towers parked in his yard. They were
formerly employed by the New York Metropolitan Opera Company
for Central Park performances. |
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