Danny Kalb, a guitarist for the Blues Project, recently passed away at the age of 80 years old. He died at a nursing home located in Brooklyn on Saturday. The news of his death was confirmed by Kalb’s brother Jonathon who stated his brother was diagnosed with cancer roughly three years ago.
Kalb was born Daniel Ira Kalb in Brooklyn, and grew up in Mount Vernon, N.Y., and started playing at the age of 13. He also attended University of Wisconsin and was playing at local coffeehouses when he crossed paths with Bob Dylan. Kalb previously stated that, “Dylan crashed with me for a few weeks in Madison on his way from Hibbing, Minn., to New York, We had so much fun, I dropped out and followed him.”
Kalb contributed two songs to 1964’s The Blues Project: A Compendium of the Very Best on the Urban Blues Scene that featured musicians from around Greenwich Village that played traditional acoustic blues music. Kalb transitioned to electric blues after seeing a performance by john Lee Hooker.The year after that, Kalb formed the Danny Kalb Quartet with Artie Traum, Andy Kulberg, and Roy Blumenfeld. Traum was replaced by Steve Katz, and singer Tommy Flanders joined and the group changed their name to the Blues Project.
The Blues Project only studio project was 1966’s Projections that featured a rendition of Muddy Waters’ “Two Trains Running.” That same year, they shared a bill with Waters and after the show, Kalb approached him. Kalb previously stated that, “I had to find out, in my deepest part, what he thought of our version of this tune that started out in the South many years ago, before he recorded it with any electric band, And these strange white people were doing this song: What was that about? So right before Muddy opened the door to go, I went up to Muddy Waters and I said to him, ‘Mr. Waters — well, what did you think?’ I knew at that point that he knew what I was asking him, and he said to me, ‘You really got to me,’ If I had died then, it would have been enough.”
Kalb’s solo career resumed with 2003’s All Together Now, 2007’s Played a Little Fiddle, 2008’s I’m Gonna Live the Life I Sing About and 2013’s Moving in Blue. Although his group was known for interpreting songs that were originally written by others, Kalb felt that didn’t take away from the Blues Project creative abilities. Previously stating that, “We’re not an imitating-kind of band, even though we used other people’s material very often, But just because you write your own songs, unless you’re a great songwriter like Dylan or someone like that, doesn’t mean that all your songs are great, just because you wrote them. I believe in that. I believe in writing songs and I encourage it. But we were a great band. That’s all I want to say.”
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