Thursday, April 17, 2008

the aurora is rising behind us...

Sad, sad news for the E Street Band and all who love them: Danny Federici, E Street organ/accordion player for the past forty years or so, died today of melanoma.

There's a nice obituary up on cnn.com and another nice one from the New Jersey Star-Ledger.

And as always, the BTX forum on backstreets.com is a good place to find some heartfelt commentary and maybe a little solace.

Danny's last full show with the band was this past November, in Boston. He made a special appearance at the show in Indianapolis on 3/20, where he played three songs during the main set and came back for the encores. I was so happy to see him, the band seemed so happy to have him back, it was a really special night. I think we all thought his return that night was a good sign. Sadly, it turns out to have been his last performance.

I keep listening to "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" which was one of Danny's signature songs for many years, and which he played that night in Indianapolis. (There's a nice video snippet of that Indy performance up on brucespringsteen.net.) Such a wistful, bittersweet song. I can't imagine Bruce ever performing it again, not without Danny.

Very, very sad.

2 comments:

Collin Kelley said...

That is very sad news. The E Street Band is and was tight.

Anonymous said...

:(