Category Archives: Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Birthdays, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Guitarist Neil Percival Young

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Guitarist Neil Percival Young

Here’s to you
Neil Young
…and here’s to you, too, the Neil Young

Happy Birthday

November 12,  1945

I didn’t know I’d encountered Neil Young when I first heard “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing.” It was late July 1966 and New York’s WOR-FM had changed formats to playing rock music. Due to a DJ union issue, the station at first simply had songs and commercials. No DJ chatter. Good and bad. I preferred music to chatter: good. I also wanted to know the names of songs I’d never heard before: bad. And who was this guy Clancy I kept hearing about?

Hey who’s that stomping all over my face?

Where’s that silhouette I’m trying to trace?

Who’s putting sponge in the bells I once rung?

And taking my gypsy before she’s begun?

What I’d later discovered was the Buffalo Springfield and by extension, Neil Percival Young.

Guitarist Neil Percival Young

Neil Young

I didn’t know who this Buffalo Springfield was, but I like them and all their three of their albums. I was also disappointed when they broke up. By then I knew the names of its members and was delighted to find out that Neil Young had released a solo album

Guitarist Neil Percival Young

To this day, Neil himself  is not happy with the album’s production. The explanation I’d heard was that he did not like his singing voice and deliberately had it buried in the mix. Later, when he became successful, the tracks were remixed with his voice more prominent.

It made no difference to me. I loved the album despite it lyrical density. Unlike Dylan, I could understand the lyrics, but like Dylan they I could not translate them.

But the music went inside me and reached great places. He has continued to do so for another half century years and counting. His solo work, expansive and growing, compares to anyone.

Guitarist Neil Percival Young

World Record

Neil Young released “World Record” on November 18, 2022, his 43rd studio album. The album was produced by Young and Rick Rubin

Long May You Run

Anyone would have a pretty good argument if they said that the Neil Young was the most important musician to come out of the 1960’s counter-culture. Of course there is Nobel Laureate  Bob Dylan’s immeasurable contributions and his continued influence. but overall, Neil Young has stayed closer to the roots of those 60s, while Dylan’s musical journey has taken him many more places.

It’s not a competition.

Truly, Neil, Long May You Run!

Guitarist Neil Percival Young

Neil Young Archives

NYA contains the complete archives of Neil Young. The site is designed for a chronological exploration of artist output including music, books, films, & videos and is available via subscription.

Guitarist Neil Percival Young
Birthdays, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Older Brother Tom Fogerty

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Older Brother Tom Fogerty

November 9, 1941 – September 6, 1990

Older Brother Tom Fogerty

Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty could certainly write hits:

  • Green River
  • Fortunate Son
  • Born on the Bayou
  • Proud Mary
  • Who’ll Stop the Rain
  • Bad Moon Rising
  • Lookin’ Out My Back door
  • Down on the Corner
  • Have You Ever Seen the Rain
  • Up Around the Bend

…and many many more. At a time when so-called underground FM radio station bands were making concept albums, CCR stuck with the older format churning out albums full of songs that typically stayed within AM radio’s strictures of under 4 minutes and more often under three minutes.

Unfortunately, John’s success overshadowed the artistic hopes of the other band members like his older brother, Tom.

Older Brother Tom Fogerty

Background

Tom Fogerty was born in Berkeley, California.  He formed a band, Spider Webb and the Insects, that Del-Fi Records signed in 1959.  Spider Webb only recorded one song for the label, “Lyda Jane,” but it was never released and the group broke up shortly thereafter.

Tom joined John’s band, the Blue Velvets, in 1960. The Blue Velvets had limited local success in the San Francisco Bay area.

The four signed with Fantasy Records in 1964. There they were briefly the Visions, the Golliwogs,  and finally, in late 1967, Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Older Brother Tom Fogerty

Stardom

TomFogertyLP.jpg

That elusive success suddenly exploded upon them: between July 1968 and December 1970, Creedence released six albums and top 10 hit after hit. The band was more a back up for John than a collaboration. Tom, the original front singer and whose own compositions were hardly included in the band’s albums, led to his leaving the band in 1971.

Post Creedence

Solo

He signed a solo deal with Fantasy in 1972 and released the first of his solo albums, Tom Fogerty, in 1972.  His other albums were:

ExcaliburTomFogerty.jpg

ZephyrNational.jpg

MyopiaLP.jpg

DealItOut.jpg

Ruby band

According to Wikipedia, Ruby was an American rock band that between 1976 and 1984 recorded three albums, Ruby, Rock & Roll Madness and Precious Gems.

Personnel were:

  • Tom Fogerty – guitar, harmonica, vocals
  • Randy Oda – guitar, keyboards, vocals
  • Anthony Davis – bass, vocals
  • Bobby Cochran – drums, percussions, vocals

Albums:

TOM FOGERTY & RUBY - RUNNING BACK TO ME.wmv - YouTube

Ruby – Rock & Roll Madness (1980, Vinyl) - Discogs

Tom-Fogerty-Precious-Gems.jpg

With Randy Oda
  • Sidekicks  (released posthumously in 1992) Tom Fogerty Randy Oda 1988 Sidekicks 1992 Album Cover.jpg
Best of…

Fogerty, Tom - Very Best of Tom Fogerty - Amazon.com Music

None had any of the commercial success that CCR had. CCR itself broken up by 1972, many say due to John’s continued insistence that all band-related issues be his to decide.

Health

Tom moved to Scottsdale, Arizona in the ‘80s. He underwent back surgery, but an unscreened blood transfusion infected him with the AIDS virus. It led to his death, officially of tuberculosis, on Sept. 6, 1990.

He was 48. The LA Times obituary had 116 words. The NY Times had 93. A search of the Rolling Stone Magazine site revealed no obituary.

Older Brother Tom Fogerty

Retrospective

In a July 18, 2014 interview in Uncut, band bassist Stu Cook  said, “Tom had put up with a lot of shit from John. I think Tom was expecting John to say, ‘OK, now we’ve achieved our goals, why don’t you start singing a few of the songs?’ Tom had a great voice, kinda like Ritchie Valens. Tom would have done a damn good job on ‘La Bamba’. But John didn’t want him to sing it, in case we had a hit with it. He didn’t want Tom to succeed.”

The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. One of the most infamous inductions of any band in the Hall’s history. According to The History of Tom Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival from the Ultimate Classic Rock site:  When Creedence Clearwater Revival was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame…Tom Fogerty’s widow brought his ashes in an urn. John, however, refused to share the stage with his former bandmates.

The feud between the remaining three band mates (though obviously “mates” is not the word to use) continues.

Older Brother Tom Fogerty

Here Stands the Clown

Here stands the clown
Spotlight currents all around
We don’t see that that clown is me
Here stands the clown

Here stands the fool
Locomotion layin’ down the rules
We don’t see that that fool is me
Here stands the fool

Here stands the man
Close the book he made with his own hands
We don’t see that that man is me
Here stands the man

Older Brother Tom Fogerty
Music et al, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Bill Hanley Last Seat in the House

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Bill Hanley Last Seat in the House

Bill Hanley, born March 4, 1937
a documentary by John Kane
Bill Hanley Last Seat in the House
Bill Hanley working the boards in 2013 at the annual Yasgur Farm Woodstock Reunion (courtesy of Charlie Maloney)

If you were at Woodstock or have ever listened to any songs from that festival, you have Bill Hanley to thank. He was THE sound man for that event,  John Kane has made a documentary about Bill called “Last Seat in the House.”

It is astounding how many things Bill Hanley has been a part of throughout his career and why he is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is simply a reflection the that Hall’s too common shortsightedness when selecting whom to honor.

A bit of Hanley’s story from the movie’s site:

Bill Hanley Last Seat in the House

Medford, MA

Born in 1937 in Medford, Mass., Parenelli Award winner Bill Hanley was the oldest of five children. By the age of six, his father gave him his first crystal set, followed by a one-tube radio, then a six-tube radio setting off an interest in electronics. During his teens he and his younger brother Terry would install TV antennas on roofs, and fix TVs for neighbors. At Christmas they even hooked up one of the early amplifiers they built to a big speaker, pointed it out their attic window, blaring Christmas music for the neighbors.

Bill Hanley Last Seat in the House

Hanley Sound

Bill Hanley Last Seat in the House

During Hanley’s time in vocational school he became unimpressed with the state of public address driven technology used for the emerging live music scene. However he was impressed by the sound system at a local roller rink, developing a long lasting love for organ music and Jazz.

By 1957, Hanley chased down Newport Jazz Festival promoter George Wein, establishing a long successful career as Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals sound company.  Soon his reputation grew and other big jobs began to trickle in, eventually leaving his day job and establishing Hanley Sound at 430 Salem St in Medford, MA by the late 1950s.

A proud moment for Hanley’s family and community was when the firm handled the sound for the second inauguration of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. That same year, he opened an office in New York City, providing sound for places like Café A Go Go and the Bitter End. Eventually the college circuit broke and a need for concert touring sound reinforcement would emerge.

In 1966 a job for the local Boston band The Remains, allowed Hanley the opportunity to support the group on their accompanying tour with the Beatles. Soon Hanley would find himself behind the mixing console for eastern portion this historic Beatles tour. Known for distributing Altec-Lansing speakers fanned around the bases, Hanley doubled the sound and power typically used, with an impressive (for the time) 600-watt amplifier system… Sadly, his sound system was pulverized by the crushing power of 43,000 screaming teenage girls. Moving on, more bands turned to Hanley Sound, like the Buffalo Springfield for example who put him under contract. While working with the band Hanley introduced them a new device called the on-stage “monitor.” Blown away by the results, Neil Young would  forever be indebted to the sound engineer for allowing them to be able to “hear” while on stage.

Bill Hanley Last Seat in the House

Fillmore East

By 1968 Hanley was brought in to do the sound for Bill Grahams Fillmore East in NYC.  At this point his reputation for quality sound was mammoth, leading him to provide sound reinforcement for some of the largest pop & rock festivals in American history. However, nothing could match Hanley’s culminating performance in sound, the pivotal gig of live event history ~ The Woodstock Music and Art Fair of 1969. Thereafter Hanley would forever be known as the “Father of Festival Sound.”

Bill Hanley Last Seat in the House
Bill Hanley at Woodstock Music and Art Fair
 Bill Hanley Last Seat in the House

World-wide

Moving into the next decade Hanley’s social conscience lead him to work on several large scale anti-war protest rallies, even sending the entire Woodstock sound system to South Africa for their Anti-Apartheid movement.

The post Woodstock, anti -mass gathering initiatives in America at the time set the sound company’s projections back. Unprepared for what was to come Hanley’s company felt the shortcomings of a changing era of technology and live performance. The 1970s also brought a great transformation to the industry where more sound companies were surfacing. From the 1970s on, Hanley would continue to be called on for more sound work, eventually turning his attention to staging.

Bill Hanley walking the festival field

A true pioneer, Bill Hanley’s contributions to live concert sound reinforcement can be felt to this day.

Help get Hanley into the R and R Hall of Fame by signing the petition!

Visit the movie site for a LOT more sound and sights…I get goose bumps just listening!

Bill Hanley Last Seat in the House

Parnelli Audio Innovator Award

In 2006, Hanley was given the Parnelli Audio Innovator Award which recognizes pioneering, influential professionals and their contributions.

2023

And read this amazing October 2023 article in the Eagle Tribune!
Bill Hanley Last Seat in the House