In 2017, while on a cross-country trip, I stopped at Riverfront Park in Peoria, Illinois, to see the Dan Fogelberg Memorial. This collection of inscribed boulders and a thoughtfully placed bench with a plaque honors the multi-faceted singer-songwriters whose career lasted more than 30 years before prostate cancer took his life at the young age of 56. Casual fans are familiar with the hits of his 1981 album The Innocent Age (“Leader of the Band,” “Run for the Roses,” “Same Old Lang Syne,” and “Hard to Say”), ballads (“Longer”), or recordings that may qualify as folk-rock (“Part of the Plan”). But die-hard fans know he dabbled in rock, classical, jazz, bluegrass, and even Baroque-inspired Christmas music. He wrote songs for guitar and piano and played other instruments as well.

Sometime after that trip, I came across a YouTube video featuring an audio tour by Hugh Higgins of the Fogelberg Foundation of Peoria for a commemorative trolley ride, highlighting sites around the city relevant to Dan’s music. Maps and pictures in the video point to the locations. I knew I had to go back someday, and a vacation to the region provided that means.

The tour starts across from Woodruff High, his high school. At the corner of N. Monroe and Abington Parkway, Abington has been re-named Fogelberg Parkway. He began his career while a student at Woodruff, with a group called the Coachmen.

Luthy Botanical Gardens and Springdale Cemetery, both just up the road, figure in the song “The Last Nail” with the line “We walked together through the gardens and graves, I watched you grow to be a woman.” As Higgins notes, it’s not documented that the line refers to these two sites, but it’s easy to see how it would. (The song refers to a longtime relationship that started in high school – a different girl than the one that “Same Old Lang Syne” is about).

The last site is the actual Memorial, which includes lines from the songs “Icarus Ascending” (a tune devoted to artists who never achieve fame), “Ever On,” “River of Souls,” and “Part of the Plan” all etched onto either one of three large boulders that overlook the river, or on one of several smaller rocks paced along the bike trail. Here too is a bench with a plaque. It contains the following quote:

“I never got into music to be the latest, greatest thing. I’m a musician because that is what I am. I will create music the way I want to whether a million people are listening or no one is listening. That’s not the point of creating music. The point is following your own creative instincts.”

After leaving Peoria, Fogelberg made a name for himself at the University of Illinois, attracted the attention of producer Irv Azoff, and went west to pursue his dreams. His early records contain several songs about his Illinois roots and though he eventually settled on both a ranch in Colorado and in a seaside town in Maine, it is a treat for fans that these significant sites in Peoria are there to visit.