Rick Danko, who helped mold the sound of modern rock as a bassist and singer with The Band, died yesterday — a day after his 56th birthday.
Danko, who backed the folkie Bob Dylan’s move to go electric, died in his sleep at his home in Woodstock, according to a friend, Ike Phillips.
Ulster County Medical Examiner Walter Dobushak said the death “at this point, appears to be of natural causes.”
Phillips, vice president of Woodstock radio station WDST-FM, remembered the rocker.
“Wherever Rick was, there was a party. He was a jovial, happy and really out-going … a funny guy,” Phillips said
“This is a big blow to rock ‘n’ roll. He was a super talent.”
Danko sang on The Band’s big hits, including “The Weight,” “Up on Cripple Creek” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”
He and the other members of the group — Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Robbie Robertson and the late Richard Manuel — were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
Danko was born in Simcoe, Ontario, a town filled with displaced Southern tobacco farmers.
His parents and his three brothers all played and sang and he made his debut in the first grade, playing the four-string tenor banjo.
Danko quit school at 14 to play in rock bands and three years later joined Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, five of whose members later became The Band.
The Hawks split with Hawkins in the mid-’60s and played backup for Dylan after the folk icon launched his electric sound.
During the Dylan years, Danko rented a pink house in West Saugerties, near Woodstock.
There, the group recorded songs with Dylan that were released as “The Basement Tapes” in 1975.
They also recorded their debut 1968 album, “Music From Big Pink,” there.
The Band played at the original Woodstock music fest in 1969. Danko said: “I remember landing — I never flew in a helicopter before — and seeing 500,000 people sitting in the field.”
The Band split up following its famous “Last Waltz” concert at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom in 1976.
“Rick went from table to table grabbing food, turkey from one plate, mashed potatoes from another. It was hilarious,” Phillips said.
Danko tried a solo career but he joined Helm, Hudson and Manuel teamed up to tour again in 1983. Three years later, Manuel hanged himself in a Winter Park, Fla., hotel room.
Danko was found guilty of smuggling heroin into Japan in 1997, but his sentence was suspended.