Heath, Gregory "Flea" (1947-) | University of Illinois Archives

Name: Heath, Gregory "Flea" (1947-)

Historical Note: Gregory "Flea" Heath (1947- ) is a longtime resident of Danville, Illinois and an avid music lover. After attending Woodstock (1969) and the Kickapoo Creek Music Festivals (1968, 1969, and 1970), Heath ventured into the music industry. In 1971 Heath became a concert promoter in Carbondale, IL. He founded Colors Unlimited to promote local musicians in the early 1970s. Through this work he made connections with many Illinois-area rock bands including The Buckinghams, Captain Rat and the Blind Rivets, Coal Kitchen, the New Colony Six, Appaloosa, and the Hard Core Blues Band. He also booked several international touring acts including Ravi Shankar, Chuck Berry, Rufus and Chaka Khan, and Maynard Fergusson. In the 1980s, he founded Celebrations, a music booking agency, in Danville, Illinois. This led to his arranging enterainment for the 1986 Illinois Special Olympics. Celebrations operated until the early 2000s. Between 2014 and 2015, he contributed objects within his collection to the Bob Zimmerman documentary Out of Nowhere, about the Champaign-Urbana rock scene.

Note Author: Nolan Vallier