name	Robert Gene Heil
birth place	St. Louis, Missouri
known	creating Heil Talk Box
job	Sound/Radio EngineerInventor
spouse	Sarah Heil
callsign	K9EID
website	www.HeilSound.com
employer	Heil Sound Ltd. (Heil talk box, Microphones, Concert sound systems) }}

Bob Heil (born 1940s) is an American sound and radio engineer most well-known for creating the template for modern rock sound systems. He founded the company Heil Sound in 1966, which went on to create unique touring sound systems for bands such as The Grateful Dead and The Who. He invented the Heil Talk Box in 1973, which was frequently used by musicians such as Peter Frampton, Joe Walsh and Bon Jovi, and is still in use today.

Heil has been an innovator in the field of amateur radio, manufacturing microphones and satellite dishes for broadcasters and live sound engineers. In the late 1980s Heil Sound became one of the first American companies to create and install Home Theaters, and Heil has lectured at major electronic conventions and taught classes at various institutions.

He has won multiple awards and honors, and in 2007 he became the first manufacturer to be invited to exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Early life

Bob Heil was born in the 1940s in Illinois. He became a proficient theater organ musician at a young age, beginning to perform at various local restaurants at the age of 14. At the age of 15, he became house player for the Wurlitzer theater organ in the Fox Theater in St. Louis. During that time he learned how to tune and repair the organ.

In his teens he also became an avid amateur radio operator, and began designing and building homemade transmitters, amplifiers, and antenna systems.

Career

thumb|Heil Sound logoIn his early twenties Heil began designing and building various theater pipe organ installations in the Holiday Inn North restaurant in St. Louis, playing the instruments 6 nights a week. After having played the organ for eight years solid, Heil opened a successful professional music shop in the small town of Marissa, Illinois.

In 1966 he founded Heil Sound, experimenting with live sound systems and becoming the technician to several venues around St. Louis, from auditoriums to bowling alleys. Large sounds systems at the time were comparatively weak and primitive; in 1965 The Beatles had played New York's Shea Stadium using only a Shure Vocalmaster PA system plugged into the baseball park's announcement system.

The Grateful Dead concert

On February 2, 1970, jam band the Grateful Dead were scheduled to play a concert at the Fox Theater in St. Louis. For the tour they were using a sound system run and developed by "Bear" Augustus Owsley Stanley III. Owsley, who had a pending drug charge for producing copious amounts of LSD, was under orders not to leave the state of California. Owsley had been arrested on February 1 for leaving the state while at a Grateful Dead show in New Orleans, with police detaining most of the Dead's sound system as well.

Someone at Fox Theater gave Jerry Garcia Heil's phone number, and Heil remembers Garcia calling to say "Hey man, I heard you have a really big PA." Heil had been toying and tinkering the Fox Theater's massive Altec Lansing A-4 speaker cabinets for some time, in the hopes of building a massive sound system to more appropriately fill the theater. Heil promptly came to the Fox and replaced the 15-inch speakers with JBL D140s, and added an array of four radial horns on top of each stack. He has stated "That made a huge difference. No one was putting radial horns into PA systems; they were just doing speakers in columns, like the Vocalmaster. The horns are what give the system intelligibility — you can actually understand the lyrics." His stack riggings resulted in an unusual frequency range from below 200 Hz to well over 15 kHz.

Heil also brought in a modified Langevin studio recording console, uniquely adapted for live work. Heil's friend Tomlinson Holman, then a young student at the University of Illinois, had helped with the rewiring. Holman would go on to create the THX theater sound protocol. Heil himself created an electronic crossover in the console to control speaker output. Beyond the PA system that night, Heil also supplied the mixers, saying "My two roadies, Peter Kimble and John Lloyd, knew all the Dead songs — they were big fans. So that night they moved the PA, set it up and mixed the show."

Heil also had a unique technique to handle the feedback problems; a small second microphone taped behind each main microphone. He stated "We would run the microphones out of phase from the monitors, something that nobody had been doing yet. Since they were out of phase with the microphones and the FOH system, anything that leaked in from the monitors would be canceled out. As a result, we could get these things incredibly loud before they would feed back. That's one of the things that Jerry Garcia really loved."

The show was a success, and the Grateful Dead asked Heil, his crew, and his sound system to join them on the road. Heil's setup would later become a template for the modern concert touring sound system.

Major tours

;The Who After touring with the Dead, ''Billboard'' reported publicly that a small Midwest sound system purveyor had snagged the position. Shortly after the article Heil received a call from the management of The Who. They had been experiencing a bumpy start to their US tour, and Heil brought a more refined and powerful version of his sound system to their shows. He's stated "We did the Who's Next tour for a year and a half, across the US, to Europe and back here again." The tour created a bond between Heil and Who guitarist Pete Townshend, who commissioned Heil to create the quadraphonic sound system he had envisioned for the live tour after the release of their ''Quadrophenia'' LP. According to Heil, "We set up two 15-channel Mavis consoles together, put speakers in four corners and we were able to fly Roger's [Daltrey] voice around the room. When we did Madison Square Garden with Quadrophenia, the PA was enormous. I think we had on each side six to eight 15-inch speaker bins, six to eight radial horns, and about a dozen tweeters. We could get about 110dB to 115dB on that stage before feedback. And the Who loved it, man, because it was loud, and they loved loud."

Heil toured with multiple other major acts of the 1970s, including Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton, and Jeff Beck.

Heil Sound, Ltd.

Heil's company Heil Sound, Ltd. is based in Fairview Heights, Illinois, and manufactures a variety of microphones for professional use.

;Heil Talk Box The Heil Talk Box was made famous after being used by Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton, and Bon Jovi. It was the first high-powered Talk Box on the market, which could reliably be used on high-level rock stages. The first Heil Talk Box was built for Joe Walsh's Barnstorm Tour. It was developed in 1973. Heil later sold the rights to Dunlop Manufacturing, Inc.. Frampton frequently used a Heil Talk Box after receiving one as a Christmas present from Heil in 1974, and it can be prominently heard on his 1975 album ''Frampton''.

;Amateur radio In the late 1970s Heil Sound entered the amateur radio market, with Heil ostensibly working to fix problems in the industry involving poorly transmitted and received audio. He applied science he had learned from Paul Klipsch, Don Leslie, Martin Wick, and the Bell Labs Fletcher-Munson curves. He developed his HC series microphones, intended for amateur radio communication. Heil Sound was also an early installer of large satellite dishes for radio. Heil Sound is currently the largest manufacturer of microphones and audio products for the amateur radio industry, with over 100 dealers worldwide.

Heil's PROLINE microphone products are popular among commercial broadcasters and live sound engineers.

;Podcast In May 2011, Heil became the host of a Ham Radio podcast "Ham Nation" on Leo Laporte's podcasting network, TWiT.

;Home theaters In the late 1980s, Heil Sound entered the home theater movement becoming popular in the United States. His company became one of the first to design and install Custom Home theater systems and nationally, with over 3,000 audio/video systems as of 2010. Heil installed the very first DSS System, which he placed at the St. Louis office of Bob Costas. He was also on the original test team for the RCA DirecTV dish system.

Lectures, publications

Heil has consistently worked as a teach and lecturer, often appearing at major electronic and satellite conventions. He has taught classes at CES and NAB shows in Las Vegas and Trebas Recording Institute in Toronto. He has published five books on music and sound technology.

Awards

Since the 1980s, Heil has won a number of awards and honors. He was the "International Amateur Radio Operator of the Year" in 1982, an award which had been held by Barry Goldwater the year before. He was later awarded the 1989 "USA Satellite Dealer of the Year" by the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association in Las Vegas. In 1995, he received the very first "Live Sound Pioneer Award" at the Audio Engineering Society Convention" in San Francisco.

Heil won the Parnelli Award for Innovator of the Year in 2007. Also in 2007, he was invited into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to put up a display of his historically important gear, which included the first modular mixing console (the Mavis), his custom quadraphonic mixer (originally used in the Quadrophenia tour), and the very first Heil Talk Box. He was the very first manufacturer to be invited into the Hall.

Personal life

Heil lives with his wife Sarah in Belleville, Illinois. He has two daughters and one step-son. He continues to play the Wurlitzer Organ at the Fox Theater, and has a classic car collection, chiefly of 50's Thunderbirds.

Publishing history

See also

Heil Sound, Ltd.

Talk box

Quadraphonic sound

amateur radio

References

Further reading

NAMME Video: Bob Heil Oral History

External links

Heil Sound Blog

Ham Nation Podcast

Category:Living people Category:Audio engineers Category:People from Illinois Category:Innovators Category:American inventors Category:Acoustical engineers Category:High-end audio Category:American electrical engineers Category:Grateful Dead Category:People from St. Louis, Missouri Category:Amateur radio people Category:1940s births

Name	Charlie Daniels
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Charles Edward Daniels
Alias	Charlie Daniels
Birth date	October 28, 1936
Origin	Leland, North Carolina, US
Instrument	Vocals, guitar, fiddle
Genre	Country, rock, southern rock, outlaw country, country rock
Occupation	Musician, singer-songwriter
Years active	1950s–present
Label	Buddah, Epic, Liberty
Associated acts	Marshall Tucker BandThe Charlie Daniels Band
Website	}}

Charles Edward "Charlie" Daniels (born on October 28, 1936) is an American musician known for his contributions to country and southern rock music. He is known primarily for his number one country hit "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", and multiple other songs he has performed and written. Daniels has been active as a singer since the early 1950s. He was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on January 24, 2008.

Career

Daniels is a singer, guitarist, and fiddler, who began writing and performing in the 1950s. In 1964, Daniels co-wrote "It Hurts Me" (a song which Elvis Presley recorded) with Joy Byers. He worked as a Nashville session musician, often for producer Bob Johnston, including playing electric bass on three Bob Dylan albums during 1969 and 1970, and on recordings by Leonard Cohen. Daniels recorded his first solo album, ''Charlie Daniels'', in 1971 (see 1971 in country music). He produced the 1969 album by The Youngbloods, ''Elephant Mountain'' and played the violin on "Darkness, Darkness".

His first hit, the novelty song "Uneasy Rider", was from his 1973 second album, ''Honey in the Rock'', and reached No.9 on the Billboard Hot 100.

During this period, Daniels played fiddle on many of The Marshall Tucker Band's early albums: "A New Life", "Where We All Belong", "Searchin' For a Rainbow", "Long Hard Ride" and "Carolina Dreams". Daniels can be heard on the live portion of the "Where We All Belong" album, recorded in Milwaukee, WI on July 11, 1974.

In 1974, Daniels organized the first in a series of Volunteer Jam concerts based in or around Nashville, Tennessee, often playing with members of Barefoot Jerry. Except for a three-year gap in the late 1980s, these jams have continued ever since. In 1975, he had a top 30 hit as leader of the Charlie Daniels Band with the Southern rock self-identification anthem "The South's Gonna Do It Again". "Long Haired Country Boy" was a minor hit in that year. Daniels played fiddle on Hank Williams, Jr.'s 1975 album Hank Williams, Jr. and Friends.

Daniels won the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance in 1979 for "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", which reached No.3 on the charts. The following year, "Devil" became a major crossover success on rock radio stations, after its inclusion on the soundtrack for the hit movie ''Urban Cowboy''. He appeared in the movie. The song is by far Daniels' greatest success, still receiving regular airplay on U.S. classic rock and country stations, and is well-known even among audiences who eschew country music in general. A hard rock/heavy metal cover version of the song was included in the video game ''Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock'' as the final guitar battle against the last boss (Lou, the devil). Daniels has openly stated his opposition to the metal cover and the devil winning occasionally in the game.

Subsequent Daniels pop hits included "In America" (#11 in 1980), "The Legend of Wooley Swamp" (#31 in 1980), and "Still in Saigon" (#22 in 1982). In 1980, Daniels participated in the country music concept album, ''The Legend of Jesse James''.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, several of Daniels' albums and singles were hits on the Country charts and the music continues to receive airplay on country stations today. Daniels released several Gospel and Christian records. In 1999, he made a guest vocal appearance on his song "All Night Long" with Montgomery Gentry (Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry) for their debut album, "Tattoos and Scars," which was a commercial success.

In 2000, he composed and performed the score for the feature film ''Across the Line'' starring Brad Johnson. In 2005, he made a cameo appearance along with Larry the Cable Guy, Kid Rock, and Hank Williams, Jr. in Gretchen Wilson's music video for the song "All Jacked Up". In 2006, he appeared with Little Richard, Bootsy Collins, and other musicians as the backup band for Williams' opening sequence to ''Monday Night Football''.

On October 18, 2005, Charlie Daniels was honored as a BMI Icon at the 53rd annual BMI Country Awards. Throughout his career, Daniels' songwriting has garnered 6 BMI Country Awards; the first award was won in 1976 for "The South's Gonna Do It Again".

In November 2007, Daniels was invited by Martina McBride to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry. He was inducted by Marty Stuart and Connie Smith during the January 19, 2008, edition of the Opry at the Ryman Auditorium.

Daniels now resides in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, where the city has named a park after him. Daniels continues to tour regularly. Daniels appeared in commercials for UPS in 2001 with other celebrities convincing NASCAR driver Dale Jarrett to race the UPS Truck.

Daniels is currently featured playing fiddle in a television commercial for GEICO auto insurance.

Political statements

"The South's Gonna Do It" had a mild message of Southern cultural identity within the Southern rock movement. Daniels was an early supporter of Jimmy Carter's presidential bid and performed at his January 1977 inauguration.

"In America" was a reaction to the 1979–1981 Iran Hostage Crisis; it described a patriotic, united America where "we'll all stick together and you can take that to the bank / That's the cowboys and the hippies and the rebels and the yanks." The song experienced a revival following the September 11 attacks, when it was floated around the internet as "F*** Bin Laden." In contrast, "Still in Saigon" (written by Dan Daley) was an effective portrayal of the plight of the American Vietnam veteran ten years after the war; it was part of an early 1980s wave of attention to the subject, presaging treatments such as Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." and "Shut Out the Light", Billy Joel's "Goodnight Saigon", Huey Lewis and the News' "Walking on a Thin Line", Paul Hardcastle's "19" and somewhat later Steve Earle's "Copperhead Road".

In 1989, Daniels' country hit "Simple Man" was interpreted by some as advocating vigilantism. Lyrics such as "Just take them rascals [rapists, killers, child abusers] out in the swamp / Put 'em on their knees and tie 'em to a stump / Let the rattlers and the bugs and the alligators do the rest," got Daniels considerable media attention and talk show visits.

In 2003, Daniels published an ''Open Letter to the Hollywood Bunch'' in defense of President George W. Bush's Iraq policy. His 2003 book ''Ain't No Rag: Freedom, Family, and the Flag'' contains this letter as well as many other personal statements. During the 2004 presidential campaign, Daniels said that having never served in the military himself, he did not have the right to criticize John Kerry's service record. His band's official website contains a "soapbox" page, where Daniels has made statements such as the following: "In the future Darwinism will be looked upon as we now look upon the flat earth theory," and "I am more afraid of you and your ilk than I am of the terrorists," regarding U.S. Senator Harry Reid. On March 27, 2009, Daniels criticized the Obama Administration for "changing the name of the War on Terror to the "Overseas Contingency Operation" and referring to terrorism as "man-caused disasters"".

Personal life

Charlie Daniels was born October 28, 1936, in Wilmington, N.C., and raised on a musical diet that included Pentecostal gospel, local bluegrass bands and the rhythm & blues and country music from Nashville's 50,000-watt radio stations WLAC and WSM. He graduated from high school in 1955. Already skilled on guitar, fiddle and mandolin, Daniels formed a rock 'n' roll band and hit the road.

Charlie Daniels enjoys hunting, fishing, and other outdoor activities. He is a member and supporter of the National Rifle Association (NRA). Daniels married his wife, Hazel, in 1963. Together, they have one son, as well as three grandchildren. On January 15, 2010, Daniels was rushed to the hospital after suffering a stroke while snowmobiling in Colorado. He recovered and was released 2 days later.

Discography

References

External links

Official Website

Charlie Daniels interview www.AwaitngTheFlood.com

Charlie Daniels interview www.CountryMusicPride.com

Charlie Daniels at bmi.com

Category:American country singers Category:American male singers Category:American session musicians Category:American country fiddlers Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grand Ole Opry members Category:Musicians from North Carolina Category:People from Wilmington, North Carolina Category:People from North Carolina Category:Southern rock fiddlers Category:1936 births Category:Living people Category:Epic Records artists Category:American Christians Category:National Rifle Association members

cs:Charlie Daniels de:Charlie Daniels es:Charlie Daniels fr:Charlie Daniels it:Charlie Daniels nl:Charlie Daniels ja:チャーリー・ダニエルズ pt:Charlie Daniels fi:Charlie Daniels

playername	Gordon West
fullname	Gordon West
dateofbirth	April 24, 1943
cityofbirth	Darfield, South Yorkshire
countryofbirth	England
position	Goalkeeper
years1	1960–1962
years2	1962–1973
years3	1976–1979
clubs1	Blackpool
clubs2	Everton
clubs3	Tranmere Rovers
caps1	33
caps2	402
caps3	17
goals1	0
goals2	0
goals3	0
nationalyears1	1968–1969
nationalteam1	England
nationalcaps1	3
nationalgoals1	0 }}

Gordon West (born 24 April 1943 in Darfield, South Yorkshire) is an English former professional football goalkeeper.

Blackpool

He made his debut for Blackpool at the age of 17. After 33 League games for ''the Tangerines'', he signed for Everton in March 1962 for £27,000, then a British record for a goalkeeper, replacing Albert Dunlop.

Everton

West was a regular in the Everton teams that won championship in 1962-63 and in 1969-70 and the FA Cup in 1966. He made 399 appearances for Everton and retired in 1973.

Tranmere Rovers

He came out of retirement after three years to play briefly for cross-Mersey rivals Tranmere Rovers. He played for Tranmere Rovers 17 times in the League.

International career

West won three caps for England, though turned down a place in the 1970 FIFA World Cup squad because he wanted to stay at home with his family.

Matches

! Date	! Home side	! Score	! Away side
11 Dec 1968		1-1
7 May 1969		2-1
01 Jun 1969		0-0

Life after football

After giving up football, West worked in security at RAF Woodvale and is now an after dinner speaker. Former Everton and Wales goalkeeper Neville Southall is campaigning for West to be rewarded with a testimonial game by Everton for his eleven years of service.

References

Sources

England profile

Playing statistics

Category:1943 births Category:Living people Category:English footballers Category:England international footballers Category:Blackpool F.C. players Category:Everton F.C. players Category:Tranmere Rovers F.C. players Category:UEFA Euro 1968 players

ar:غوردون وست da:Gordon West fr:Gordon West it:Gordon West pl:Gordon West