Keyboard Magazine Mourns Springsteen Keyboardist Danny Federici, 1950-2008

Danny Federici, longtime keyboardist sideman for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, passed away on April 17, 2008, of melanoma. Federici’s signature style on organ, accordion, glockenspiel, piano, and other keyboard instruments helped establish the unique sound of the E Street Band, from The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle all the way through Springsteen’s latest release, Magic. But he was with the Boss long before that, accompanying him in nearly every pre-E Street incarnation of the band since the late ’60s.. Although he’d been fighting melanoma for three years, Federici appeared with the E Street Band as recently as late March at their show in Indianapolis.

The soft-spoken Federici and his fellow sideman Roy Bittan have graced the cover of Keyboard magazine several times over the years, and one of the his most memorable anecdotes concerned his early years as an accordionist. “If it wasn’t for my mother,” he once told us, “I don’t think I would have kept up with music. She’d tell me, ‘If you play music, you’ll always drive fast cars and meet beautiful women.’ But I was always into electronics. I had a tape recorder in my room. One day I tape recorded myself practicing, then played the tape back while I watched TV. After awhile, I’d say, ‘Ma, how did that sound?’ She said, ‘That sounds real good.’ So I put the tape back on and watched more TV. Of course, she caught me at it about five days later.”

“Danny’s keyboard artistry helped create one of the greatest band sounds in rock ’n’ roll history,” says Keyboard Editor in Chief Ernie Rideout. “You can instantly recognize any song he played on as a Springsteen tune, from the keyboard sounds alone. The combination of his parts with those played by Roy Bittan is exquisite. Our hearts go out to Danny’s family, Bruce and the E Street Band, and all of their fans everywhere.”

The Federici family and the E Street family have requested that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Danny Federici Melanoma Fund (www.thedannyfedericimelanomafund.com). which is dedicated to the research and development of new and effective treatments for melanoma and to raise awareness for this aggressive disease.