
Eulogy
for Danny Pendleton: "Danny and the
Love of Music"
For me, Danny was about music. And the
love of playing music well is a fine metaphor for Danny’s life.
There are three important aspects to
those who play music: touch, time and tone.
The first point is touch, and whether he
was playing guitar, piano or steel guitar he had wonderful touch. Anyone
can pound on a piano, or a guitar although most of us are afraid to even
go near that pedal steel that he mastered.
But pounding the piano or beating the
guitar are not what Danny did. He caressed and loved those instruments
and discovered the right notes to play and how to play them.
Good analogy for his life, because he
touched us all in life with the same caring grace and skill. He didn’t
bang or pound, but what he contributed was right on. The lives he
touched: yours, mine, our families, co- workers, golfing pals, drinking
buddies, and the whole world through his music.
Since I’m on about music and touching
lives, I first actually met Danny at a wonderful party of musicians in
Washington. It was a rare event in the early 70's when many of our
generation’s musical “some bodies” were all in DC together. The party was
at the home of John and Faysioux Starling: John of the Seldom Scene with
Mike Auldridge, Ben Eldridge, John Duffy; Taffy and I who were Fat City;
Leo Kottke, the great guitarist from Minnesota; Emmylou Harris, Linda
Rondstadt, and my friend the late Steve Goodman, who wrote City of New
Orleans.
Guitars were passed around, and we all
sang and played. But the end of the evening, with all these stars around,
found me at the bar drinking Budweisers with this handsome tall steel
guitar player, talking about the Redskins. I invited him to watch the
game the next day and we were friends ever since.
Before I met him he was into country
music, and told me once about a show he played with Elvis Presley at
Marshall Hall, Virginia, in the ‘50's. The concerts were on a boat that
sailed the Potomac. But when Elvis was there, so many folks attended, the
boat couldn’t sail and they did the concert at the dock.
He played with several country artists in
the ‘50's, Vernon Taylor, Ralph Case, and later, Little Feat, John Denver,
John Jennings, Mary Chapin Carpenter.
He always left a good impression. I
never heard anyone say anything bad about Danny, ever, or his playing, and
all, especially other musicians, loved his touch.
Time
In comedy, they say timing is
everything. In music also, and so in life. In music, timing means
playing the note precisely, when it’s supposed to be played, sustaining it
for the time it’s supposed to happen.
Like pounding and banging, playing at the
wrong time, coming in late, or playing too much, are no-no’s. He knew
when to play, when it was right, and when it wasn’t.
After we became friends, one day I told
him I was going to start a band. It became Starland Vocal Band. When we
had our first gig, Danny asked could he come and just help out and play a
little in the background. Well, we weren’t a country group, and we
didn’t really need a steel guitar, but we loved being with Danny, and he
always played something interesting, so we said “Sure.”
Danny came up and played for free, which
was slightly less than we were making at the time. But he stayed in the
background and was always there with a nice, tasteful fill or a lead line.
Well, he may have been a walk-on, but he
was there at the beginning, through all of our albums, even producing and
engineering our “Christmas at Home” album. He did all our John Denver
tours with us, all our regular shows, and all our TV appearances.
Now we’re talking about timing here.
Danny not only did this all with us, but also worked full-time at NASA.
How could this be? One might ask. And I certainly did. And I found out
that the answer was “Accumulated Annual Leave.” Of which Danny apparently
had perpetual amounts.
Now just as an aside, and to show how
show business sometimes works, the Starland Vocal Band never really made
any money, although we worked very hard. I remember one time in Los
Angeles, when we were playing a John Denver television special. We had
flown Danny out, first class, so he could play with us. Well, RCA records
decided that since Starland was in L.A., we should do some promotion. So
they sent a limo at 9 a.m., with a drunken limo driver, and we spent the
next 7 or 8 hours going from radio station to record store back to radio
station.
I remember the limo driver, at one point,
trying to navigate an alley that was too narrow for the limo, and we
became wedged in the alley, unable to get out. Finally, after pretty much
destroying the exterior of the car, the driver reversed, extracted us, and
took us back to the Sheraton Universal hotel. It was exhausting,
frustrating, humiliating, and bad.
So I took off my “meet and greet”
clothes, put on a swimsuit and t-shirt, and went downstairs to the
swimming pool bar for a drink.
Guess who’s there? Being paid by us, and
by NASA, with sunglasses, a vodka tonic, reading a copy of Money Magazine,
was Danny. He said “How was your day?” Talk about timing.
Through all this time, Danny never missed
a day or a beat.
Tone
Tone is really the most precious quality
in music. It’s what makes sound feel like it does. And, back to our
analogy, it’s a pretty good indicator of the quality of our own lives and
our humanity. Tone—Danny was pitch-perfect. He got it right.
I first heard Danny play at the Red Fox
Inn in Bethesda with Emmylou Harris and the Angel Band. They became great
friends and stayed so forever. I told her the other day about Danny’s
passing.
Here’s some of what she said:
“Danny set the bar for what a musician
was supposed to be.
He taught everybody what it meant to play
music.
He taught us all.
He taught us the beauty of tone.
His playing made me a better singer.
He was a guide to the music.
He never told anybody what to play, but
he inspired everyone by his playing.”
That’s Emmylou Harris
And listen to this, from Tom Guidera, the
bass player for that band Band:
“Danny created such beauty. I remember
having to be careful when we performed together. I’d find myself being
lifted off the stage, balanced somehow between his steel guitar’s voice and
Emmy’s voice. One could easily forget to play, and simply listen”
I want to tell you that in our playing
years, Danny often noted that my guitar was out of tune at times, which made
it unenjoyable for him to play, since playing in tune was what he did.
Instead of trashing me, which he also did
sometimes, he’d say before a show “Can I tune your guitar?” which recognized
my total irresponsibility and his total love.
And to take again this musical analogy back
to his life: It was all about tone.
As Danny was in distress these last several
years I visited with and phoned him often.
And while we all wondered about the state
he was in, he never complained. Never said, “Why me?” He always was
thankful for those of us around him, especially Patrese, his wonderful
caregiver and friend for several years. Thank you Patrese.
When I asked Jon Carroll, our mate from
Starland Vocal Band, here’s what he wrote about Danny:
“To describe his musical style is to
describe his personal countenance–warmly lyrical, wryly thoughtful:
disarming and without ego, bracing yet sweet like a mint julep with the
kindest gentleman stranger”.
Music, touch, time and tone and when you
end up being remembered by poets and loved by all, forever will take notice.
Love and Peace
Eulogy for Danny Pendleton
Delivered by Bill Danoff on February 28, 2007
St Elizabeth Ann Seton Church, Davidsonville MD