How fortunate for us that talented multi-instrumentalist
Dan Zanes travelled the path that he did. Dan was born in 1961 in Exeter, New Hampshire and raised by his mother, a photographer who had also operated a number of soup kitchens. He began playing guitar at age 8. When he was old enough to get his first library card, Dan checked out LPs by the legendary Ledbelly and rocker Chuck Berry to start building his chops. "He always loved music", says his mother.
After a childhood in west Texas and on the eastern seaboard, Dan moved away to college in Oberlin, Ohio in 1981. The first morning in the breakfast line, he met Tom Lloyd, someone he knew from high school, and within a year, they quit college and moved to Boston with Dan's brother Warren where they met Steve Morrell and formed the Del Fuegos. They made a splash on the Boston club circuit and then branched out into east coast tours. They began recording and achieved the Best New Band title in 1984 by Rolling Stone magazine, with "Don't Run Wild" and a few other hits. Bruce Springsteen once jumped on stage with the Del Fuegos to sing "Hang on Sloopy"!