The Danny Adler Story

Danny Adler started playing music at an early age. Born in 1949, in Cincinnati, Ohio, home of King Records, he had early influences from greats on the scene that played the circuit. He gigged with locals H-Bomb Ferguson, Albert T. Washington, Amos Milburn, Bootsy and Phelps Collins while still in high school. Great music was everywhere on records and in the clubs. Danny picked up the influences of the legendary R&B, blues, jazz, and later, rock, that spanned the 40’s to the 80’s. His eclectic and unique sound packs a solid soul punch and infuses it with a blues feel that drives a hot steam engine of funk, then drifts down the river ending up in a story of colorful characters. He rocks and heats your blood with a dirty, funky groove. He cools you down with a jazzy sophistication. Danny Adler delivers.

His professional career began with Amos Milburn’s band. He went on to play with John Lee Hooker, T-Bone Walker, Memphis Slim, Chuck Berry, Slim Harpo, Solomon Burke, Charles Brown, Lowell Fulson, Arthur Crudup and Earl Hooker.

London had become a melting pot of rock and roll and soul influences. Danny played in Smooth Loser with Jeff Pasternak on bass, Chris Gibbons on guitar, and Malcolm Mortimer, for a time, (GT Moore and the Reggae Guitars) on drums. British guitar met the driving soul and blues of the Midwest. When they broke up, Roogalator was born. Danny became the “Roogalator” guitar master and they played their first few gigs.

When the 70’s scene blossomed into a rock mecca, he became part of Elephant’s Memory (pre-John & Yoko) in New York. He worked the rock and R&B scene in California and New York. Never content to restrict himself to one form of music, he moved on to Europe and played solo as well as working with Ginger Johnson’s African Drummers who blended a reggae sound with their rhythm. Danny toured on the Irish C&W circuit and expanded his musical curiosity to studying jazz guitar theory in Paris and fell in love with the sounds of Django Rheinhardt. He returned to London.

Roogalator started again with some session work, with drummer, Bobby Irwin, pianist Steve Beresford and keyboardist, Nick Plytas. The great John Peel, rock and roll/ new wave DJ featured them on his radio show. They played live at the London Marquee, the Roundhouse and other hot spots. Plytas and Beresford moved on but encouraged some other members to join, Dave Solomon, drums (played with Plytas doing Motown covers), and Paul Riley, bass (Chili Willi & Red Hot Peppers) joined. Great gigs and several record offers followed. Some band changes occurred and a Plytas song, “Love and the Single Girl” showed just how wide their range was. “Roogalator” and Cincinnati Fatback” solidified the sound that shook the pub rafters. Danny’s hit songs were taking off.

Always an original, he started writing more of his own material and formed the Danny Adler Band. In Europe, he was the featured artist on a TV series segment, “Rock Palast.” A soundtrack followed featuring his original music for the BBC television series, “World About Us.”

Danny was an original member of “Rocket 88” with Charlie Watts and Ian Stewart from the Rolling Stones, Alexis Korner, and Jack Bruce. Their love of the music that King Records and many other early R&B labels brought to world recognition was played with a hard edge and rock and roll fire. The Deluxe Blues Band was born when Danny met up with Bob Brunning, bass player for Fleetwood Mac. They added Mickey Waller on drums, (Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart), and Bob Hall on keyboards (Savoy Brown, Groundhogs). Dick Heckstall-Smith added a funky tenor sax.

Danny played shows with Bo Diddley, Jimmy Witherspoon, Memphis Slim, Annie Ross, (Lambert Hendricks & Ross), Lowell Fulson, Eddie Vinson, Charlie Musselwhite, Dr. John, Carey Bell, Slim Galliard, and recorded with Tony Cook, James Brown’s drummer.

The Danny Adler Band reemerged with new members and recorded six all original LP’s. Two Deluxe Blues Band LP’s followed. The “Otis Elevator Gilmore” LP sparked a legal question because Danny became Otis, a fictitious, old time blues man, and signed as his widow in the lease deal to a major reissue label. He sounded like the real thing because he is. He paid his dues in the black clubs, like the Sha Ra and Vet’s Inn where they’d have their arms folded when he started playing. By the first few bars, they were screaming, “Play it, white boy!”

He worked with Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds in a band called “the Disco Brothers” contributing original material. He was one of the first artists on the “Stiff” label. He was well known to Elvis Costello (also on Stiff) and others who had a pop/rock feel in their music. Danny did it all fusing blues, rock, soul and even jazz. He could play pop just as well, such as Plytas’ “Love and the Single Girl.” “Cincinnati Fatback/ All Aboard” (BUY3) as the third single released on the innovative Stiff label. Some of the punk bands in the late 70’s/ early 80’s were familiar with Adler, the “Roogalator” guitar master. The Vibrators, Sex Pistols and Clash even warmed up for him. They did not play Danny’s style of music but acknowledged the musicianship it took to make that sound.

He recorded a jazz LP (previously unreleased) at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio and a live Blues LP in Cincinnati in 1993.

The late 80’s/ early 90’s became a hard time for blues in America. Danny gigged solo and expanded his vast repertoire of originals, blues, jazz and songs from the 30’s to the present.

He became a locomotive fireman in England and licensed locomotive engineer in the USA. His love of the railroad, the art of the steam engine, and train design continues as he runs trains and writes music about them. Roots roll on in his music and you can never pin down just one sound. It’s like a blues soul rock and roll thunderclap with jazzy undertones and a flash of pop. He sounds like no one else. Just listen to “Gusha-Gusha” music.

The Danny Adler Band is playing today and his new songs continue to be fresh and innovative, so get “All Aboard” and groove to “Cincinnati Fatback.” If you want to feel the sound, you have to get down with the “Solid Sender.” All Danny’s original songs are available on iTunes.com.

by Tebbe Farrell, 2006