Bill Hanley (born 1937) is an American audio engineer and is regarded as the "father of festival sound". He is most widely known as the sound engineer behind the

Woodstock The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held from August 15 to 18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. Billed as "a ...

festival in

Bethel, New York Bethel is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in Sullivan County, New York, United States. The population was estimated at 3,959 in 2020 United States census, 2020. The town received worldwide attention after it served as the locati ...

in August 1969. He was also influential in a number of other festivals. According to Michael Lang, "I was trying to find someone who could do a sound system for Woodstock, and there was no one who had ever done something like that before. Then there was this crazy guy in Boston who might want to take a shot at it." Hanley ran the soundboard for Bob Dylan's controversial "electric" set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. His company also installed a sound system at Bill Graham's Fillmore East. He was also a part of the large rock Mar Y Sol festival in

Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...

in 1972. In 2020,

University Press of Mississippi The University Press of Mississippi (UPM), founded in 1970, is a university press that is sponsored by the eight state universities in Mississippi (i.e., Alcorn State University, Delta State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi Sta ...

published the book ''The Last Seat in the House, The Story of Hanley Sound'' by John Kane discussing Hanley's impact on the field of sound engineering. Kane made the book into a movie which premiered in 2024.

References

External links

Bill Hanley Interview
at NAMM Oral History Collection (2021) American audio engineers Living people 1937 births People from Medford, Massachusetts {{US-audio-engineer-stub

See also

References

External links