Danny O'Keefe was born in Spokane, Washington in 1943 and spent his childhood in the Central Washington town of Wenatchee. His father was an avid jazz collector who had helped put himself through college as a drummer. O’Keefe began his musical career in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota coffeehouse scene. A severe motorcycle accident in his early twenties led to the decision to pursue a musical career full time. In 1969, a meeting with Buffalo Springfield manager Charles Greene led to a telephone audition with Ahmet Ertegun, president of Atlantic Records. O’Keefe’s second album for that company produced the top-ten hit, and now standard, “Goodtime Charlie’s Got the Blues”, a song since recorded by Elvis Presley, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Leon Russell, Charlie Rich, Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie McCoy, Cab Calloway, Earl Klugh, Chet Atkins, and many others. Mel Torme performed it on the hit television series, “Night Court”, and it was recently recorded by Dwight Yoakum for his “Under the Covers” release. Danny O'Keefe recorded four albums for Atlantic Records and two albums for Warner Bros. Records during the Seventies: “Danny O'Keefe” (Cotillion), “O’Keefe” (Signpost), “Breezy Stories” (Atlantic), “So Long Harry Truman” (Atlantic), “American Roulette” (Warner Bros.), and “The Global Blues” (Warner Bros.). Throughout the Seventies and into the Eighties O’Keefe toured with many well-known acts; among them, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Jimmy Buffet, Jesse Colin Young, Maria Muldaur, Linda Ronstadt, Loggins and Messina, and the Hollies. He has also performed on the same bill with such diverse acts as Bruce Springsteen, YES, Tom Waits, John Hammond, Little Feat, Rita Coolidge, Dr. John, The Beach Boys, and many others. Several of Danny O’Keefe’s other songs have been recorded by well-know artists, among them: Jackson Browne, “The Road”; Leo Sayer, Donny Hathaway, “Magdalena”; Judy Collins, “Angel Spread Your Wings”; Gary Stewart, Andy Williams, “Quits”; The Mark-Almond Band, German cabaret star Ute Lemper, “You Look Just Like A Girl Again”; John Denver, “Along for the Ride”, (co-written with Bill Braun); and “Souvenirs”, recorded by Jimmy Buffet (co-written with Vince Melamed). O’Keefe co-wrote and performed two songs with saxophonist John Klemmer for his “Magnificent Madness” album on Elektra Records. He also co-wrote two songs with Jesse Colin Young for his “Perfect Stranger’ album, also for Elektra. In 1985, Coldwater Records released the album "The Day To Day”, which was re-released in 1990 as "Redux" by Beachwood/Chameleon Records. The singles, “Along for the Ride”, and “Someday”, were charted in both NAC and AC charts. A video of “Along for the Ride” received play on music video television channel VH-1.
Sheena Easton recorded “Next To You”, a song co-written with George Merrill, for her 1995 MCA Records release, “Mon Cherie”. David Lindley has released three O’Keefe songs, one written with Bob Dylan. Jesse Colin Young has also released a compilation album with a song co-written with O’Keefe titled, “On the Edge”, as well as a recording of “Catfish” on his last album. David Mallett recorded “Never Got Off the Ground”, a song co-written with O’Keefe, for his latest Vanguard Records release, as did Molly O’Brien for her latest Sugar Hill release (she recently performed the song on Prairie Home Companion). Alison Krauss released this same song on her album “Forget About It”. Molly’s brother Tim O’Brien and the group Nickel Creek recorded a song co-written with O’Keefe, “When You Come Back Down”, for Sugar Hill, as well as "Into the West" (co-written with Fred Tackett) for his award winning Alula Records release, “The Crossing”. "Runnin' From the Devil", released by Miramar Recordings in February 2000, is an intensely personal album that O’Keefe feels is his most important work to date. Danny O’Keefe founded the Songbird Foundation in 1997 to bring greater awareness to the issues of neo-tropical rain forest destruction and migratory songbird loss as the result of modern agricultural techniques, particularly non-sustainable coffee production. Please visit The Songbird Foundation’s website at: www.songbird.org to find out more about this important issue.
