{"id":645204,"date":"2026-08-19T09:44:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T09:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/645204\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T09:44:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T09:44:17","slug":"it-was-always-writing-it-was-music-it-was-creative-energy-all-the-time-for-peoria-music-legend-dan-fogelberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/645204\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It was always writing, it was music, it was creative energy all the time\u2019 for Peoria music legend Dan Fogelberg"},"content":{"rendered":"

PEORIA (25News Now<\/a>) – He was a star musician of the 1970s and 1980s, who sold over 13 million albums in the U.S. alone. His roots, however, were in the River City.<\/p>\n

Dan Fogelberg was born in Peoria in August 1951. He spent his childhood performing locally and attending Woodruff High School.<\/p>\n

He came from a musical family. His mom was a trained singer and pianist, while his father was a band director at Woodruff and Pekin High Schools. <\/p>\n

Back in the day, Fogelberg\u2019s English teacher told other students what Fogelberg was like. That included Bill Conger, who is now Chief Curator of the Peoria Riverfront Museum.<\/p>\n

\u201cDan never turned it off. It was always writing, it was music, it was creative energy all the time. And she really encouraged it at the time,\u201d Conger said. <\/p>\n

Fogelberg\u2019s Peoria band The New Coachmen<\/a> opened for The Who at Expo Gardens, and he recorded some of his earliest hits at Golden Voice Recording Company in Pekin.<\/p>\n

He studied art and theater at the University of Illinois before pursuing his singer-songwriter dreams full time.<\/p>\n

After making it big, several of the musician\u2019s songs had a connection to Central Illinois. \u201cSame Old Lang Syne\u201d tells the story of a Peoria run-in with an old girlfriend. \u201cLeader of the Band\u201d paid tribute to his father\u2019s role as a band director in the area. <\/p>\n

Fogelberg also performed in Peoria several times after becoming famous, at Glen Oak Amphitheater and the Civic Center.<\/p>\n

He experimented with different genres for his music, from Americana to Jazz. He played a role in designing album covers, too, posing the doll from \u201cThe Innocent Age\u201d released in 1981. <\/p>\n

\u201cDan was also an artist, a painter, creative spirit. He was often involved creatively with the development of his albums and of course the sound of the records as well,\u201d Conger said.<\/p>\n

All in all, Fogelberg released more than 15 albums during his lifetime and had 14 songs on the Billboard Charts.<\/p>\n

There was no celebrity drama for Fogelberg. Fans remember a career focused on the music and a \u201cvery quiet life that was out of the spotlight in many ways. He truly shunned the spotlight, enjoyed reading, loved cooking. He was a very private person. And yeah, he kept his nose clean, never got in any trouble,\u201d said Hugh Higgins, co-founder of the Fogelberg Foundation of Peoria<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dan Fogelberg was 56 when he died in 2007 from prostate cancer, but his hometown never forgot him.<\/p>\n

Fans in the area, like Higgins, wanted to remember him. They started a grassroots fundraising effort to raise money for one stone with Fogelberg\u2019s lyrics on them. But, with some help from the official Dan Fogelberg website and another site called Living Legacy, their cause reached the internet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t just solicit the requests for funds. We asked people to send us their thoughts. What words do you think you like to see stand the test of time, etched in rock,\u201d Higgins said.<\/p>\n

That led to multiple rocks with his lyrics in multiple parks, and continuing charitable efforts for music students and the Prostate Cancer Foundation<\/a>. <\/p>\n

An exhibit on Fogelberg<\/a> runs through Oct. 4 at the Peoria Riverfront Museum. The Fogelberg Foundation has several permanent memorials to the singer throughout Peoria, including the ones at Forest Park Nature Center and Riverfront Park.<\/p>\n

Get 25NewsStreaming on your smart TV \u2014 it\u2019s free and easy. Watch live newscasts, recent newscasts, top news stories, updated forecasts, local sports highlights, and exclusive content. Search \u201cWEEK 25 News\u201d to install.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 WEEK. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PEORIA (25News Now) – He was a star musician of the 1970s and 1980s, who sold over 13…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[264],"tags":[272944,18890,24970,1430,272941,38559,18,117,101049,182148,272940,594,272943,41032,5489,69716,19,5087,17,14383,13516,337,5,2034,272942,237,134154,83175,6318,13267,32970,141113,146942,11186,4647,1214,1211,4287,160297],"class_list":["post-645204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-25news","tag-artist","tag-bill","tag-central","tag-conger","tag-dan","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-exhibit","tag-fleming","tag-fogelberg","tag-foundation","tag-higgins","tag-high","tag-history","tag-hugh","tag-ie","tag-illinois","tag-ireland","tag-legend","tag-museum","tag-music","tag-news","tag-of","tag-pekin","tag-people","tag-peoria","tag-riverfront","tag-rock","tag-school","tag-singer","tag-soft","tag-songwriter","tag-star","tag-taylor","tag-the","tag-we","tag-week","tag-woodruff"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117121533112601545","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}