There is life after Woodstock.

Another reason why reality is cooler than fiction.

The Columbus Dispatch: Sha Na Na co-founder now rocks in world of forensic linguistics

As he walks to the stage of a lecture Hall at Hofstra University, Robert Leonard looks every bit the college professor: blue blazer and shirt, charcoal slacks, yellow tie, glasses.

He’s a long way from the summer of 1969, when the uniform of the day was a gold-lame jumpsuit. Leonard was a founding member and bassist for Sha Na Na, a doo-wop group that played at Woodstock.

Leonard’s specialty today is forensic linguistics — employing the science of language to help identify the writers of ransom notes, threatening letters and other correspondence. Leonard directs Hofstra’s forensic-linguistics program while also consulting for law firms, advertising agencies, TV networks, police departments and government agencies.

He recently advised the New York Police Department when someone was sending threatening letters to celebrity interracial couples and assisted on a murder investigation in Pennsylvania.

"To understand law, one must understand language," Leonard tells a gathering of lawenforcement officials at a Hofstra seminar on his techniques.

"Who wrote a ransom note? Who called in a bomb threat? What is the meaning of a phrase in a contract? . . . Could a fourth-grade dropout actually have written a confession with the phrase: ‘He approached the vehicle, and I raised my weapon?’

"All of these questions address aspects of language."

People who intentionally try to disguise their identity in ransom notes or threatening letters are usually done in by their own words, Leonard says. The way people speak or write often reflects their age, gender or upbringing.

"Even when people try to disguise their speech, there are still characteristics of their own speech," Leonard says.

For investigators trained to analyze language, those characteristics serve as verbal fingerprints.

Although he only spent two years as a "rock star," the 57-year-old Leonard says his involvement with Sha Na Na "really got me into thinking of applying linguistics to legal matters."

The group, which later went on to have a successful TV variety series in the ’70s and appeared in the film Grease, was formed by Leonard and classmates who performed with the glee club at Columbia University.

"He as much as anyone personified these Ivy League guys doing this theatrical thing," says "Screamin" Scott Simon, who still tours with Sha Na Na. "Robby performed songs like Teen Angel and Tell Laura I Love Her, and he really toed the line between satire and playing it straight. He’d fall to his knees and let out one tear. It wasn’t done with a wink or a smirk. He did it straight.

"He really was a defining persona at the start of the group."

In his current field, Leonard has little opportunity to draw upon his musical roots, although he quoted Paul Simon while instructing law enforcers about interpreting the contents of an audiotape.

"A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest," says Leonard, citing the lyric from Simon’s The Boxer.

Leonard fondly recalls Sha Na Na’s appearance at Woodstock — a gig arranged by Jimi Hendrix, who had heard the group perform in New York.

"That was truly amazing," Leonard says. "To go out onstage and see this ocean of people, most of whom thought they were hallucinating: these guys in gold lame jumpsuits and greased-back hair."

He remembers the weekend as muddy and messy but wonderful.

"There was no dissent, everybody really was as if they were one tribe."

After two years with the band, he was offered a fellowship at Columbia. The decision was difficult.

"I wanted to do both, but I was afraid if I stayed in the group I couldn’t do Columbia," Leonard recalls. "So I said I’ll retire at 21 from the music business. I’ve been on the Johnny Carson show, what more do I need? I’ve been at Woodstock, I’ve drunk with Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.

"OK, let me go on and go back to school."

And he still hasn’t left.