Boyish Man

If Muddy Waters was a mannish boy, Rick was a boyish man. In his 20s and 30s, he was a crazy, quirky, lovable kid who was self-assured in his musicianship yet exuded just enough vulnerability to make him accessible in a way that other "rock stars" weren't.

In his 40s and 50s, he was still a crazy, quirky, lovable kid who had the appearance and demeanor of someone much younger, with a genuine innocence tempered by a subtle, lurking, street-wise, road-warrior quality of a guy who'd been around the block a couple thousand times-which, of course, he had.

Rick knew that The Band was good. But he never bought into "the myth." And he was not one to analyze or explain just how or why they were good. He'd invariably attribute it to Levon's drumming, or Richard's voice, or Garth's keyboard wizardry. When it came to his bass playing, he could talk technique when he had to-in an interview situation, for instance, or in his Homespun instructional video, Rick Danko's Electric Bass Techniques.

But talking about his voice-that was something else. Many interviewers over the years asked about his quivering tenor and the mournful quality in his singing. How did he do it? What made him sound so melancholy? How did he get those harmonies?

Those kinds of questions embarrassed him, mostly because he had no idea how to answer. In early interviews, he'd usually just evade the question, or go off on some crazy tangent about something else altogether. Or, he'd laugh it off and turn it into a joke. Or, he'd speak in Danko Code--which nobody understood then, and nobody understands now. Or he'd drop in a Dankified platitude (whatever the cliche, he'd put his own spin on it so that it meant something else). Rarely, though, did he answer the question.

But by the early 90s, he'd come up with a new answer that not only made sense--sort of--but also seemed to quell the follow-up questions: "Asthma," he'd say. "That's what gives me that desperate quality."