Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board

Subject: Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 03 Apr 01 - 02:27 AM

Dear Friends:

I realize that only a few of you might have known Bill Domler, but he was a prime mover in the "folk" world here in Connecticut. He started the Sounding Board Coffee House in Hartford nearly 30 years ago, left that for his father and mother (Len and Fran Domler) to keep going while he started the Roaring Brook club and concert series, then he began the Glastonbury Audubon Center series. Bill had a small printing shop where he also sold folk CDs for awhile.

Well, Bill fell outside of his place of business about ten days ago, suffering massive brain damage. They kept him alive on a respirator, tubes, etc., but he never regained consciousness and did not respond to any stimuli after the injury. The neurosurgeons assured the family that the damage was so great they were certain Bill would never come back from his vegetative state. The family talked it over with Trina, his partner, and last night (Sunday) they decided to take him off of the life support systems that were sustaining him, leaving just some tubes providing liquid and a morphine drip.

Bill lasted less than twenty-four hours. He died this afternoon (Monday) at 3:20, as quickly and as quietly as the family had prayed that he might. I give the family a lot of credit for having had the love and the courage to do what was clearly the right thing. Bill would not have wanted it any other way, I'm sure. He was only 53 years old.

There will be a memorial gathering sometime later in the month, and there may also be a benefit concert to raise funds to help meet part of his medical indebtedness. I will try to keep you informed.

Sandy Paton

Subject: RE: Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Apr 01 - 04:50 AM

It sure seems like a lot of good people are checking out these days. Thanks for letting us know, Sandy. I am always sorry to hear of such a loss and agree with you, the actions of his family and partner are admirable. I am sure he is much more at peace because of it and that they will find more peace in their hearts because of it, over the difficult times to come.

kat

Subject: RE: Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board
From: kendall
Date: 03 Apr 01 - 09:01 AM

Thanks for letting us know Sandy. That's too young to go.

Subject: RE: Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board
From: Dahlin
Date: 03 Apr 01 - 09:09 AM

Sandy

Sorry to hear about Bill. Thanks for letting us know.

Dick Dufresne

Subject: RE: Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 03 Apr 01 - 12:43 PM

This was in my last note from Jan, Bill's sister. I post it here for those of you in Connecticut, or nearby.

"We are planning on having calling hours on Thursday evening, from 6-9 PM, at Brooklawn Funeral Home, Brook Street, Rocky Hill, CT. Directions are: 91 southbound, exit for West Street - Rocky Hill (23? the Veteran's Home and Dinosaur State Park are on this road), turn right at the end of the exit, end of road - at light - left onto Route 3 (Shunpike Road), past 1st light, over the highway to 2nd light and take a left onto Brook Street. On the right, a little way down, you will see fields of small trees and just beyond that, ON THE LEFT, is the funeral home. The funeral home is next door to The Connecticut Student Loan building."

Jan has kept us informed throughout this tragic period with some of the most poignant letters I have ever read. She has allowed us to share the pain experienced by the family as they struggled to reach their decision to let Bill go.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 03 Apr 01 - 01:55 PM

Terribly sad news Sandy. Another one of the "good people" you and Caroline introduced me to. Thanks for letting us know.

Rick

Subject: RE: Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 03 Apr 01 - 04:12 PM

Hi Sandy!

Bonnie, as you may know, has been a Sounding Board member since the early 1970s. She will try to get to the funeral home on Thursday. She also asks me to tell you that while she realizes that you will probably not be the organizer of a benefit that you can pass on the word that we will make ourselves available to sing a couple of songs at a benefit if the organizers would find that beneficial.

My condolences to you and your family on the loss of your friend.

All the best, Dan

Subject: RE: Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board
From: Mike Regenstreif
Date: 03 Apr 01 - 05:09 PM

I didn't know Bill that well, but I've been reading Jan's reports this past week with a very heart for what happened to him, and also with much admiration for the bravery that she's showed in sharing the pain of the tragedy.

Mike Regenstreif

Subject: RE: Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 04 Apr 01 - 01:33 AM

This is in the Hartford Courant this morning:

W. Domler Dies; Aided Folk Music

By ROGER CATLIN
The Hartford Courant
April 03, 2001

William L. "Bill" Domler, a printer who was credited for building a thriving folk music scene in Hartford and served as a popular FM folk music personality for nearly 20 years, died Monday from injuries suffered in a fall two weeks earlier. He was 53.

Domler, who lived in Canton's Collinsville section, fell outside his shop in Simsbury on March 18. Friends say he went to his shop, The Speediest Printer in Town, about 6:30 a.m. that Sunday to do some work. He wasn't noticed until 10, when a co-worker found him lying unconscious outside the shop.

"Bill really is the reason that there are folk venues in the Hartford area," said Susan Forbes Hansen, a longtime folk radio personality who also hosts a number of festivals. "He has done so incredibly much for folk music in Connecticut and beyond."

Domler started many of the major folk series in the Hartford area, beginning with the Sounding Board Coffee House in a church basement Saturday nights in West Hartford. His parents, Len and Fran Domler, took over the running of the Sounding Board as Domler moved to start the New Harmony folk series in Canton, which was to become the Roaring Brook Concert Series.

Domler in recent years helped establish the Connecticut Audubon Coffeehouse Series in Glastonbury. He and his father also started the free Connecticut Family Folk Festival in Elizabeth Park in 1974, which ran for 25 years.

He hosted a weekly morning folk music program on the University of Hartford station, WWUH, 91.3 FM, for nearly 20 years before he signed off earlier this year.

Services are pending.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board
From: Scuttlebutt
Date: 04 Apr 01 - 06:25 PM

Ken and I stopped in Hartford last fall to say "Hello" to Bill who we had met via the Internet - we spent a happy few hours with him - talking of all things "folky" on both sides of the Atlantic.

We listened to some music with him - drank a coffee and really enjoyed his company. He shared with us some of his favourite New England folk music - and we have come to share those likes.

It was therefore with great sadness we read this posting. Our thoughts are with his family - if anyone reading this goes to a memorial service - please "sing him out".

A quiet gentleman, a true gentleman, and one who will be missed.

Bill - may you always run before the wind - safe harbour

Ken and Jan Lardner (England)

Subject: RE: Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 04 Apr 01 - 11:41 PM

The article in today's Hartford Courant became a whole lot more than the brief obituary that was on their web site (the one I posted above). The front page of the Entertainment section featured the start of the story with a bold headline, and continued on page 4 with almost a third of a page, with photograph, about how much Bill contributed to the folk music scene in Connecticut. Heartbroken as they are, Bill's parents must be extremely proud to see Bill given such recognition.

Caroline and I will convey all your condolences to the family and to Trina tomorrow night.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board
From: Big Mick
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 12:05 AM

Sandy & Caroline, please convey my condolences as well. I know, all too well, how hard it is to say goodbye to someone that you have shared music with. Words fail me. In your own words, be well, my dear friend.

Love to all,

Mick

Subject: RE: Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 01:37 AM

The article from the Hartford Courant, thanks to cut and paste::

Domler: A Folk Legacy

By ROGER CATLIN
The Hartford Courant
April 04, 2001

Over the years, there have been near constant complaints about the lack of a rock scene in Hartford, occasional lamentations about the rise and fall of jazz and rumblings about the threadbare nature of country-western around here.

But in all the years I've been here, there has never been a complaint about a lack of folk music.

Indeed, the folk-music presence in Hartford, in all its variations and permutations, has been as rich and large as the audience that has been cultivated to enjoy it.

And a lot of its success is due to Bill Domler, who died Monday at age 53, two weeks after a bizarre accident outside his print shop in Simsbury, where he fell and hit his head.

Domler was a folk-music disc jockey on the University of Hartford's WWUH-FM (91.3) for more than 20 years, until he quit last fall. He was the first to bring folk to a weekly morning slot, which eventually grew to daily folk programming there.

Building on the interest he created, especially in traditional folk, Domler started the Sounding Board Coffeehouse. The weekly Saturday night series, held mostly in West Hartford church basements, has run for more than a quarter-century, largely under the direction of his parents, Len and Fran Domler, making the Domlers Hartford's first family of folk presenters.

Bill Domler also started the New Harmony folk series in Canton, which was to become the Roaring Brook Concert Series - also still running.

In recent years, he helped establish the Connecticut Audubon Coffeehouse Series in Glastonbury. In 1974, he helped start the free Connecticut Family Folk Festival in Elizabeth Park, which ran for 25 years.

And there were all kinds of offshoot temporary stages for Domler's shows, from the Auer Farm in Bloomfield and the Wallace Stevens Theatre at The Hartford to a short series at Timothy's Restaurant last year.

His most arresting series married his love for music with his job - running a print shop. There he provided some of the first Hartford audiences for acts like Dar Williams, the Nields and David Massengill.

When I began writing about music in Hartford 15 years ago, my beat was folk, and Domler was a key ally - bearish, garrulous, a singular promoter of the art who was instrumental in bringing a number of acts to Hartford for the first time, including Nanci Griffith, Silly Wizard and Gordon Bok.

My strongest memory of any of his shows was one in his shop, Speediest Printer in Town, when it was on South Whitney Street in Hartford's West End. There, amid the ink and the racks of vinyl (for a print shop, it was the best folk record store around), was the perfect setting for the union songs of activist U. Utah Phillips.

Bruce Pratt, the Connecticut folksinger who now lives in Maine, remembers Domler for his "wide reading interests and a love of the arcane. He enjoyed fife and drum corps musters; traditional folk music, primarily American; some singer-songwriters; and, more than anything else, running concerts and concert series.

"He loved the Paton Family, founders of Folk-Legacy Records in Sharon, and most of their roster," Pratt said, "but he also liked some more contemporary players and writers: Eric Bogle, Kate Wolf, Stan Rogers, to name a few."

Susan Forbes Hansen, a longtime radio host of FM folk programs in the region, said Domler always championed traditional folk music.

"He certainly hired, and played music by, contemporary performers in his coffee houses and on his radio shows," Hansen said. "But not much time would go by without bringing back music recorded by Folk-Legacy from its early days, or playing something from Harry Lauder, or, most amazingly, singing a song himself on his show.

"He was by no means a polished singer, but he seemed to feel that the music wasn't only to be made by the stars or those who made their livings at it, but by all of us just because we felt like it."

"I will miss him," said Pratt, "mostly because he really loved this music. He always wanted to enrich the musician's pocketbook, and he never flagged in his belief that the folk community was comprised of genuinely good people."

Domler also will be missed by those who simply appreciated his printing skills. "He was an absolutely reliable printer, and he not only gave a good price but unbelievable service," Pratt said. "He would sometimes drive an order out to Hartland on a Sunday, or work a Sunday to help someone on a deadline."

Indeed, it was Domler's need to go to his shop to do work March 18 at 6:30 a.m. that may have been his undoing. After Domler's slip and fall, a co-worker did not find him until 10 a.m.

Besides his parents, Domler leaves two sons.

Calling hours are Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m. at Brooklawn Funeral Home in Rocky Hill.

Plans are in the works to help defray medical costs in a manner Domler would have certainly approved - a benefit folk music concert, to be organized next month.

Subject: RE: Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 01:23 PM

Thank you, Charlie.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 05 Apr 01 - 06:11 PM

Sandy, I have just read this with shock and sadness. Bill and the Domler family have been our friends for many years. Please give our love to all of them tonight. Jean

Subject: RE: Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 06 Apr 01 - 12:11 PM

I didn't get your message in time to tell them of it, Jean. Perhaps you'd like to send Bill's parents a personal message.

Len and Fran Domler
30 Agawam Drive
Cromwell, CT 06416

Bill's sister, who kept us all informed throughout their ordeal, is

Jan Steucek
668 Main Street
Cromwell, CT 06416

I'm sure they would love to hear from you.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Bill Domler, founder, the Sounding Board
From:
Date: 07 Apr 01 - 12:44 PM

I just wanted to express my thanks and gratitude to all who posted their expressions of caring and concern for both Bill Domler and his family.

Bill's spirit and passion for the music he loved has touched many people in so many ways.

Thank you all so much.

Much love to all of you,

Trina (Bill's partner)