Rick Danko Of The Band Remembered

12/10/1999 7:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(12/10/99, 7 p.m. ET) - Rick Danko - singer, songwriter, and bassist for The Band - died early this morning (Dec. 10), just weeks shy of his 57th birthday (LAUNCH, 12/10). According to Danko's family, he returned home earlier this week from a short tour and died peacefully in his sleep.

Danko is survived by his wife, Elizabeth and children, Lisa, 30 and Justin, 28. Danko's third child, Eli passed away in 1989; he would have been 29.

In a recent interview with LAUNCH, Danko spoke about his early years with the Band, which also included Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson, and the late Richard Manuel. He also reminisced about the group moving into a pink house in West Saugerties, N.Y. The house would become the inspiration for the title of the group's first album, Music From Big Pink.

"Garth, Richard and myself moved into the pink house; Robbie moved up and we'd get together every day at the basement that's how that kind of came to pass. You know, the more you get together, the more things happen," Danko told LAUNCH.

Danko said the band weren't living on top of each other; in fact they had a pretty good system worked out. "We were in the middle of 100 acres with a couple of ponds and we all had our own bedrooms and there was a living room, a dining room, a kitchen and a full basement which we turned into a little studio," he said. "My job was to keep the fireplace going and take out the garbage and hire the young girls to help us keep the place clean. Richard did the dishes and Garth…no, no…Garth did the dishes 'cause he wouldn't trust anyone else with the dishes," Danko said with a laugh. "And Richard did the cooking. We had a pretty good thing going. Bob [Dylan] would come by and if we weren't up from the previous day, he would come by and make the coffee - get the coffee pot brewing you know and start warming up the typewriter and thus came The Basement Tapes."

Danko also spoke about when the Band first started playing with Dylan, backing him on his first "electric" tours, which many Dylan fans didn't accept right away. "We met Bob Dylan and the marquee would say 'Bob Dylan and the Band.' People, they would boo us all over the world you know, but I didn't take it personal - I was a sideman for Bob Dylan. But it was interesting when we started playing with Bob. We got to travel the world - it's better than being in the Navy or the Army. And I think Ronnie Hawkins provided the boot camp aspect of discipline for us. From 1960 to 1965, we worked six, seven nights a week playing nightclubs and one-nighters. And then when I met Bob, of course, things really did lighten up."

-- Sue Falco, New York

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