Danny Federici met Bruce Springsteen four decades ago when he and a group of other rock 'n' roll kids were walking along the Jersey Shore, trying to see if they could use this music thing to avoid having to ever get a real job. The fact that Danny and Bruce were still working together 40 years later, until Federici's death Thursday at Memorial Sloan Kettering after a three-year battle with melanoma, says a lot about them both.
The simple phrase is that it says they never had to look for a real job. The truth is that their music became their job. They were good at it. If Federici wasn't Springsteen, who was? He was good enough to play with Springsteen, good enough to stay in the band even though Springsteen could have hired a thousand other keyboard players.
Source: New York Daily News