Thursday, December 5, 2002

Dangel helped pioneer 'Northwest Sound'

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF

No one could have guessed it, but the birthday concert in Tacoma on Sunday would be the last chance old friends would have to jam with Seattle guitarist Rich Dangel.

The next day, Mr. Dangel died from an aneurysm.

He was there when rock was young in the Northwest. He played guitar for one of the region's most popular early rock bands, wrote a hit song while still in high school and arranged the music to an early version of the party standard "Louie Louie."

Mr. Dangel, who had a history of heart disease, turned 60 Sunday.

Friends say the way he played Sunday gave no indication that he was in poor health. Indeed, through the years, he continued to form different bands and play various forms of popular music.

He had shared his music and talent for more than 43 years, beginning with a national performance in 1959 on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" and an East Coast tour to follow with his first group, The fabulous Wailers.

The Wailers had periodically regrouped to do shows around the West, but the band and Mr. Dangel returned for an East Coast tour last summer.

It was the first time that the Wailers played the East Coast set since doing Clark's show.

"The East Coast thing kind of reminded us that there were a lot of fans out there," said Buck Ormsby, one of the original Wailers.

The band's music is scheduled to be released again in Europe next month, and the group was supposed to go on tour there to promote it.

Mr. Dangel was the first of several guitarists cycling through the Wailers, and his death will not stop the legendary Tacoma band.

Over the course of his musical life, Mr. Dangel had performed with and founded more than a dozen bands.

He wrote his first chart hit when he was at Clover Park High School, with fellow Wailer John Greek, called "Tall Cool One." The song led to the group's first album, "The Fabulous Wailers," which took the band on tour across the country.

Mr. Dangel was an Air Force brat. His father was stationed at McChord Air Force Base.

In 1960, before heading for the Marine Corps, Mr. Dangel arranged the music to the rock 'n' roll classic "Louie Louie," which the Wailers released in 1961.

But the song was only regionally popular until The Kingsmen played the arrangement on tour and took the song global.

The Wailers became a Northwest rock icon. A permanent exhibit of their contributions can be found at Seattle's Experience Music Project.

After leaving the Wailers in 1963, Mr. Dangel played a range of guitar styles, from jazz to funk to blues and back to rock.

He had become an inspiration to many up-and-coming musicians and a pioneer in creating what has become the "Northwest Sound."

"He was effective," Ormsby said. "His styled affected a lot of musicians."

Ormsby said that since announcing Mr. Dangel's death to friends and associates yesterday, he had received many messages of sympathy and condolences from musicians throughout the industry.

Mr. Dangel formed a quartet immediately after leaving the Wailers. He then toured with another band up and down the West Coast before returning to Seattle in 1968 to form the locally popular group Floating Bridge with blues guitarist Joe Johansen.

When Floating Bridge broke up, Mr. Dangel formed band after band. In the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, he played with a band named Rich Dangel and The Reputations, which played blues and backed up such legendary singers as Etta James.

His latest group, a blues-jazz ensemble called the Rich Dangel Big Band, was to perform later this month and for a New Year's Eve concert with jazz legend Ernestine Anderson.

His performance Sunday at The Swiss Club in Tacoma featured his band Butterbean, but included a variety of former band members who joined him on stage.

In earlier interviews, Mr. Dangel said he loved being a part of a band. He had tried to move to Los Angeles several times to pursue solo celebrity, but never liked living there, he recently recalled.

"I've gotten to play with a lot of great musicians, and that's what it's all about. It doesn't matter if you get paid or if anyone's in the audience; the beat goes on," said Mr. Dangel in a profile published last week in The (Tacoma) News Tribune.

"In Butterbean, I have a great time with (drummer) Michael Kinder and (Hammond B-3 player) Buck England. We're good friends, and we connect in a soul kind of way. My nine-piece band that plays with Ernestine is great, too. We really connect," he said in the story.

He was not married, and there was no information on funeral arrangements last night.