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None were successful and the
band (which included also Joel "Bishop" O'Brien on drums, John
McDuffy on vocals/organ and Dickie Frank on bass) broke up in the fall of
1966, not before being lucky enough to back Peter and Gordon, the
"Everly Brothers of the British Invasion." (Peter was Peter Asher).
In 1967 Kortchmar and O'Brien
started a new band, The Flying Machine, with Zachary Wisner on bass and
Kortchmar's old friend, James Taylor on guitar and vocals. They were signed
to Euphoria later that year and only released one radio single, "Night
Owl" [1967], peaking at #102 on the national charts. The label never
released their album and the band soon broke up. Taylor
decided then to move to London
and Kortchmar gave him Peter Asher's number.
Asher was now head of A&R at
the Beatles label, Apple Records. He invited James to play his song and he
liked them. Paul McCartney and John Lennon were among his first fans.
After Taylor's solo success, Euphoria released
the Flying Machine old demos in 1971, with the title "James Taylor and
The Original Flying Machine".
With the Flying Machine "in
pieces on the ground" (immortalized in James Taylor’s song "Fire and Rain"),
Danny spent six months as a sideman to the Fugs in the
late ‘67, both on
record and in concert. The Fugs were another New York band, started
by Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferbery in 1964. Kortchmar's salary was $100 a week
and he played on their "Tenderness Junction" EP [1968] and on their
live album, "Live From the Player Theater" [1967].
After that, he was the last
guitarist for the dimming Clear Light. It was Danny’s gig with Clear Light that got him out to L.A.,
though.
In 1968 Kortchmar moved to California with
another ex-member of the Fugs, Charles Larkey. They met Brill Building
songwriter Carole King and they formed The City. With King on vocals and
keyboards, Kortchmar on guitars, percussion and vocals and Larkey on bass,
The City released one album on legendary Lou Adler’s label Ode
Records, "Now That Everything Has Been Said" [1968]. The band never
toured due to King’s stage
fright. After The City disbanded, Adler
encouraged King to go solo and Kootch and Larkey remained part of King’s studio
back-up group during her highly-successful solo career.
Thus Kortchmar started doing
session work in L.A.
He played on most of King’s
records, starting with "Writer" and the
amazing "Tapestry," as well most of Taylor's albums, from "Sweet Baby James"
on. He toured extensively with both and soon became one of LA's more well
known and paid session players.
In the meanwhile he reunited
with O'Brien and Larkey forming the psychedelic band Jo Mama, along with
Ralph Schuckett (keyboards) and Abigail Haness (vocals). They released two
records on Atlantic, "Jo Mama"
[1970] and "J Is For Jump" [1971] and they were Taylor’s backup
band.
After their break-up, Danny had
settled into the security of an in-demand L.A. session men and with Lee Sklar (bass),
Craig Doerge (keyboards) and Russ Kunkel (drums) formed a backup band to
accompany James on his first National tour. Danny accepted and that band
decided to stay together afterwards, too, calling themselves the Section,
putting out three more records, "The Section" [1972] and
"Forward Motion" [1973] on Warner Brothers and finally "Fork
It Over" [1977] on Capitol.
In 1973 Kortchmar made one of
his most important step away from session work, releasing his first solo
record, the amazing "Kootch".
He then formed the Attitudes, a
"space funk" quartet with other four well known L.A. session players: Paul Stallworth on
bass, Jim Keltner on drums and David Foster on keyboards. (Foster is today a
well know multi-platinum producer-composer). They signed for George Harrison's
label, Dark Horse Records, and put out two records "Attitudes"
[1975] and "Good News" [1977]. Their single "Sweet Summer
Music" peaked at#94 in the charts in '76.
But for the greatest part of the
Seventies, he remained a member of the west coast session family, playing on
many major albums in the '70s, including those of Crosby & Nash, James
Taylor, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Carole King.
In 1980 he completed his last
solo album, "Innuendo" on Asylum Records.
His gradual transition from session
player to producer started with Louise Goffin, Carole King's daughter, in
1979. In 1981 he joined Don Henley’s band releasing one of the most famous and
prolific collaboration. He was the co-writer and co-producer of most of Don
Henley’s solo projects
"I Can’t Stand Still" [1982], "Building The Perfect Beast" [1984] and "The End Of Innocence"
[1989]. Since then he has been keeping on producing other records (Neil
Young, Jon Bon Jovi, Billy Joel to name a few) as well as continuing his
session work (Linda Ronstadt, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne).
With his friend Jackson Browne,
he co-wrote some songs, most notably the "Fast Times at Ridgemont
High" soundtrack hit, "Somebody’s Baby" [1982] and "Shaky Town" [1977], "Tender Is The Night" [1982], "Knock On Any Door" [1982] and
did a memorable European Summer Tour in 1982.
In the ’90, he produced a whole generation of new musicians, as Venice,
Freddy Johnston, Spin Doctors, Dada. He's also formed another band, Slo Leak,
with Charlie Karp (vocals and guitar) and Harvey Brooks (bass), recording and
producing two blues records "Slo Leak" [1996] on Pure and
"When The Clock Strikes Twelve" [1999] on TVT.
Kortchmar is still touring,
doing session work, and producing records. Recent productions
include Hanson’s "Underneath."
In 2004, Danny started to play
with his new group, the Midnight Eleven, formed by guitarist Zonder Kennedy, drummer Joe
Bonadio, guitarist Danny Kortchmar,
vocalist/harmonica player Mark Grandfield.
In November 2005, they have
completed their first album “Midnight Eleven”.
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