Bill Hanley "The Father of Festival Sound", and Lorin Rowan of The Rowan Brothers interviewed Tuesday 8/16!

Bill Hanley at Woodstock, 1969

The first Woodstock festival took place August 15th through 17th, 1969. Original Woodstock sound engineer Bill Hanley, known as "The Father of Festival Sound", joined host Eli Polonsky live in the studio for a special Woodstock 42nd Anniversary program segment from 12 noon to 1:30 PM EDT!

Bill Hanley's live sound career began with the legendary Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals of the late 1950s, and in the 1960s included The Bitter End in Greenwich Village, Woodstock, The Fillmore East, The Cafe Au-Go-Go in NYC, and many more.

Hanley is a 2006 Parnelli Award winner for innovation in the live event industry, and the subject of an upcoming Oral History Documentary titled "The Last Seat In The House". We spoke with Bill about his entire career, took listener questions, and listened to some of the great music from Woodstock and elsewhere that Bill engineered!


The Rowan Brothers

Lorin Rowan of The Rowan Brothers called in to host Eli Polonsky for a telephone interview shortly at 1:40 PM.

Singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalists Chris and Lorin Rowan were born and raised near Boston, when their brother Peter was making a name for himself in the band Earth Opera. The duo joined David Grisman in San Francisco in the early '70s, and opened for The Grateful Dead at the Fillmore West. Their first album "The Rowan Brothers" included Grisman, and the Dead's Jerry Garcia and Bill Kreutzmann. They have been performing a mix of bluegrass, folk, and country-rock for 40 years.

The Rowan Brothers were at Johnny D's in Somerville on Tuesday, August 16 and performed their unique "mash-ups" of Beatles songs as "The Day Trippers" plus some old and new originals, and also Friday, August 19 with special guest vocalist Maddie Sifantus at a benefit for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Wakefield, MA performing original and traditional material. Congratulations to our ticket giveaways to the Johnny D's show!