Danny Federici was born on January 23rd, 1950 in Flemington (New Jersey/ USA), where he also grew up.

When Danny was seven years old, he began to play classical accordion, later switching to Rock 'n' Roll on a Cordovox after the Bealtes hit. He always considered it his main instrument. His mother drove him to the lessons and, as Dany recalled it, "She used to tell me, 'If you play music, you're going to have a good life. You'll always drive fast cars and meet beautiful women.'"
When Danny was 13 he joined a Rock 'n' Roll band and started to learn the keyboard because "the girls weren't going for the squeeze box. I had to come up with something. It was a lot easier to move around, stand up and play the keyboards."

First Federici wanted to play some music for TV or movies. "When I first came out to the West Coast, I was trying to get some work in film, television and background music. I realized that some of the stuff I was creating was probably better than some of the stuff I was hearing on the radio."

Danny left high school in his junior year to play with another musician, Bill Chinnock, who would later frequent the Asbury Park scene. Chinnock even had a singles deal with Artie Ripp's "Kama Sutra" label. Chinnock released a record on "Tristereo", but "Kama Sutra" distributed, and when that label went bust, Danny and Chinnock where left high and dry...

Danny joined "Child" in 1969. Since then he and Bruce always played together (Steel Mill, Dr. Zoom & the Sonic Boom, Bruce Springsteen Band, E Street Band). Before that he played keyboards with Joan Armatrading, The BoDeans, Gary US Bonds and Graham Parker.

In 1997 Danny released his first solo-record named after his birthplace "Flemington" on his own "Deadeye Records" label. He felt that his smooth jazz CD is a return to his roots. Danny spent a lot of time on his computer and home studio to produce the CD and was doing it for himself, after some friends encouraged him to put out his first release. The album got quite a bit airplay on the jazz radio.

In 1995 Danny and the rest of the E Street Band got back together after the E Street break-up in 1989 to record several songs for the "Greatest Hits" record.
After the Greatest Hits album was recorded he and Springsteen went again into the studio. Danny was "allowed" to play the keyboards on Bruce's "The Ghost of Tom Joad" album.
In 1999 they went back on the road for the worldtour and in 2001/ 02 they recorded the new album - "The Rising", which is followed by a large worldtour.

In spring 2004 Danny released his second solo-album named "Sweet". Again it's a smooth jazz CD, but it also has some dose funk with it. Danny used the piano, the B3 organ and the accordion. The album contains ten songs, eight written or co-written by him and his producer/ saxophonist Michael Cates and 2 jazz/ funk covers of Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and the Stones' "Miss You". It's only available through www.backstreets.com.

Articles:
"Jazz Review" ??/ ??/ 2002

Interviews:
"Chorus and Verse" ??/ ??/ 2002

Photos of Danny

The cover of Danny's 1st solo-record

The cover of Danny's 2nd solo-record