Edward John Renehan Jr. (born c 1956) is an American writer, consultant, publisher, and

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...

-winning musician.

Early life and music

Renehan grew up in the

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

village of

Valley Stream, New York Valley Stream is a Administrative divisions of New York#Village, village in Nassau County, New York, Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York (state), New York, United States. The population in the Village of Valley Stream was 40,634 at the tim ...

, where he attended school with future actor/director

Steve Buscemi Steven Vincent Buscemi (,As stated in interviews by Buscemi himself. It is not uncommon for people to pronounce his name or instead. ; born December 13, 1957) is an American actor. He is known for his work as an acclaimed character actor. Mul ...

and actress

Patricia Charbonneau Patricia Charbonneau (born April 19, 1959) is an American actress, perhaps best known for playing the part of Cay Rivvers in '' Desert Hearts'' (1985), her first film role, for which she was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best F ...

. At age 13 began learning the guitar. He studied blues guitar with the

Reverend Gary Davis Gary D. Davis (April 30, 1896 – May 5, 1972), known as Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Gary Davis, was a blues and gospel singer who was also proficient on the banjo, guitar and harmonica. Born in Laurens, South Carolina and blind since infanc ...

in New York as a teenager. By 20, he was playing and recording with folksingers

Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and social activist. He was a fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s and had a string of hit records in the early 1950s as a member of The Weav ...

and

Don McLean Donald McLean III (born October 2, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. Known as the "American Troubadour" or "King of the Trail", he is best known for his 1971 hit "American Pie (song), American Pie", an eight-and-a-half-minut ...

, among others. In 1976, he and Seeger recorded "Fifty Sail on Newburgh Bay: Hudson Valley Songs Old & New Sung by Pete Seeger and Ed Renehan." Several of the tracks Renehan recorded with Seeger reappeared in 2019 as part of the six-CD, table-top book retrospective "Pete Seeger: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection" which won the Grammy Award for Best Historical Album. Renehan

In his early twenties he performed with

Happy Traum Harry Peter "Happy" Traum (May 9, 1938 – July 17, 2024) was an American folk musician who started playing around Washington Square in the late 1950s. He became a stalwart of the Greenwich Village music scene of the 1960s and the Woodstock m ...

Artie Traum Arthur Roy Traum (April 3, 1943 – July 20, 2008) was an American guitarist, songwriter, and producer. Traum's work appeared on more than 35 albums. He produced and recorded with The Band, Arlen Roth, Warren Bernhardt, Pat Alger, Tony Levin, ...

and others at various venues and folk festivals in the North East. Renehan stopped playing professionally in 1980, and only rarely ventured onto stages thereafter. Happy Traum Artie Traum Ed Renehan

Publishing and consulting

Renehan graduated from

State University of New York at New Paltz The State University of New York at New Paltz (SUNY New Paltz or New Paltz) is a public university in New Paltz, New York. It traces its origins to the New Paltz Classical School, a secondary institution founded in 1828 and reorganized as an ...

. He thereafter worked for several New York publishing companies, focusing on the developing domain of digital publishing, including e-publishing and print-on-demand (POD) technologies. His tenure included 7 years as Director of Computer Publishing Programs for MBCI/Macmillan, now a part of

Bookspan Bookspan LLC is a New York–based online bookseller, founded in 2000. Bookspan began as a joint endeavor by Bertelsmann and Time Warner. Bertelsmann took over control in 2007, and a year later, sold its interest to Najafi Companies, an Arizo ...

. From 1994, he worked as an independent consultant and author, including writing books on the Kennedys,

Jay Gould Jason Gould (; May 27, 1836 – December 2, 1892) was an American railroad magnate and financial speculator who founded the Gould family, Gould business dynasty. He is generally identified as one of the Robber baron (industrialist), robber bar ...

and

John Burroughs John Burroughs (April 3, 1837 – March 29, 1921) was an American naturalist and nature essayist, active in the conservation movement in the United States. The first of his essay collections was ''Wake-Robin'' in 1871. In the words of his bi ...

, as well as best-selling books about computers and computing. During this period he wrote books published by Doubleday, Crown, Oxford University Press, Basic Books, McGraw Hill, Simon & Schuster, Chelsea House, and other firms. In 2010, Renehan founded New Street Communications, an enterprise focused on audio, digital, and POD editions of books in a range of fields. According to a July 2013 report in the ''Providence Business News'', the combined New Street firms had revenues of more than $200,000 in the 2012 fiscal year, which was the enterprise's second full year of operation. As of June 2015, the firm had 85 titles in print. In 2022, he founded the New Street division illume Media, a boutique ''a la cart'' publishing agency offering ghostwriting, writing, editing, book-doctoring, design, audiobook creation, eBook creation, and hybrid- and self-publishing guidance to clients interested in any or all of these services. The firm's focus is on nonfiction with specialties in finance, investing, management, and related fields.

Family and affiliations

Renehan is married and lives in the village of

Wickford, Rhode Island Wickford is a small village in the New England town, town of North Kingstown, Rhode Island, North Kingstown, Rhode Island, United States, which is named after Wickford in Essex, England. Wickford is located on the western side of Narragansett B ...

. He has two adult children, and is a grandfather. He has served on several nonprofit boards, including the

Hudson River Sloop Clearwater The Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc. is a non-profit organization based in Beacon, New York that seeks to protect the Hudson River and surrounding wetlands and waterways through advocacy and public education. Founded by folk singer Pete Seege ...

. He is active in the

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...

— the co-founder of which,

John Perry Barlow John Perry Barlow (October 3, 1947February 7, 2018) was an American poet, essayist, cattle rancher, and cyberlibertarian political activist who had been associated with both the Democratic and Republican parties. He was also a lyricist for th ...

, sat on the New Street Editorial Board until his death in 2018. With

Stewart Brand Stewart Brand (born December 14, 1938) is an American project developer and writer, best known as the co-founder and editor of the ''Whole Earth Catalog''. He has founded a number of organizations, including the WELL, the Global Business Networ ...

and others, he is a founding member of The

Long Now Foundation The Long Now Foundation, established in 1996, is an American non-profit organization based in San Francisco that seeks to start and promote a long-term cultural institution. It aims to provide a counterpoint to what it views as today's "faster ...

Works (partial list)

*Deliberate Evil: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Daniel Webster, and the 1830 Murder of a Salem Slave Trader () *The Life of Charles Stewart Mott: Industrialist, Philanthropist, Mr. Flint () *The Enkert Dossiers () *Desperate Voyage: Donald Crowhurst, The London Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, and the Tragedy of Teignmouth Electron () *Dylan at Newport, 1965: Music, Myth, and Un-Meaning () *Pete Seeger vs. The Un-Americans: A Tale of the Blacklist () *Understanding Kerouac's ON THE ROAD () *Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons () *The Kennedys at War () *The Secret Six: The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown () *John Burroughs: An American Naturalist () *Commodore: The Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt () *The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and his Family in Peace and War ()

References

External links

New Street CommunicationsRenehan's Personal Web SiteIllume Media
*
Ed Renehan on Goodreads
{{DEFAULTSORT:Renehan, Edward J. Jr. 1956 births Living people American publishers (people) 21st-century American non-fiction writers State University of New York at New Paltz alumni People from Valley Stream, New York 21st-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers