Laptop malfunctions and a whirlwind trip to Sydney for Pete & Alison's wedding created a week-long US news blackout for me. So it was with great sadness to learn 'Phantom Dan' Federici of the E Street Band lost a 3-year battle with melanoma last week.
Couldn't count the number of times I've watched Danny on stage rocking from side to side behind his Hammond B3 organ or coaxing Jersey shore soul from an accordian. He kept a lower-than-low-key profile but was as essential to Springsteen's sound as skee-ball was to a day at Palace Amusements. Closest I ever got to him was the back bar at the Stone Pony, where he'd occasionally catch a show and leave incognito before a drunken fan could spot him and start howling "Bruuuuuuuuce!" He was small in stature but made a giant sound.
Danny played on some of the most important songs of my life, none more so than this one, performed at his last show with his 'lifelong colleagues' on 20 March in Indianapolis:
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