Stephen Hendel, the Unlikely Backer of ‘Fela!’

NYTimes.com: As a student at Phillips Exeter Academy in the mid-1960s Stephen Hendel found comfort in his old turntable, the kind that could stack six records at a time, his Paul Butterfields and Sonny Boy Williamsons. Out on campus you endured bullies by keeping your emotions in check, he believed. But lying on his bed, listening to blues and jazz and soul for hours on end, the teenager felt his first stirrings of excitement and rich imagination.