Dan Riley is the conusmate comedian of music!

The Comedy of Music – Dan Riley

By Roger Kuhns

Some people just have a talent for making us laugh. Dan Riley is one such person; and he does so through music. He also does this to make people feel better about the world, and to support good causes.

Dan is a Door County resident, living just north of county line in Union on a 40-acre tree farm. This is home base after years of being on the road – first as a serious musician then as a seriously funny musician. The fifty-something comic has had a long and interesting career. Right now though, he has his “Give me the cheese head poka” parody on his website. He also has a CD coming out: Live At The Riverside CD, which was recorded last October.

There have been a lot of good causes to work for in Riley’s career. He cares about people, and this shows with his involvement in the Cerebral Palsy telethons for many years in Green Bay. Riley said, “It’s the longest running local telethon in the nation and the most successful.”

There’s another event coming up: on Saturday June 15 at Southern Door High School Riley is putting on a show he calls ‘Dan Riley and Friends’. “I’m beating the bushes for friends…performing friends to do this for free.” Riley said. “I have this $1000 scholarship called the Dan Riley Scholarship for the Performing Arts each year. I’ve been doing it for many years now, and perform the concert to get money to sustain it.” Cory Vandertie runs the Door County High School Auditorium and was the first Dan Riley scholarship recipient. The scholarship helped him to pursue his talent, and now he’s working with it.

The gig life: Taking your act on the road opens doors and pits, and you walk and fall through them, depending on your artistic agility and luck. Riley recounts one cruise ship gig he had earlier in his career. It was a world cruise from Mbai to Cairo, and came with a complete armed military escort. Riley said, “The nastiest people we saw were the military guards. Doing song parodies & comedy on a ship like that with a very mixed audience is really tough. Gotta be careful too.” Riley said that now the bulk of his time is booking the Disney cruises because it is working to the family audience. When on those boats, Riley said, “I am the Disney product. I don’t cross any lines.”

Riley got an early start in his musical family in Milwaukee. Like so many, he was inspired by the Beatles, and started in garage bands. His college band in Milwaukee always took second place in battle of the bands. Riley said, “Our band was called ‘Defiance’, but we should have been called ‘Runners Up’.” After a number of false starts and managing a club or two, Riley finally got on tour with Rodeny Dangerfield, in 1981 just when he was on top after Caddy Shack. Riley worked as an opening act for Dangerfield. Riley said, “I met my wife when I was working the disco, and we started traveling all over with Rodney – main stage Caesars, the works.” Riley also toured with Joan Rivers extensively, as well as with country acts.

“I worked with just about every body in one form or another, I hosted country music festivals. Willie (Nelson) was there, opened a couple concerts with Wylon Jennings, worked a lot on the Nashville Network – what Jim Stafford called Practice TV.” “It forced me to write a lot of material, and I did a lot of corporate work; they pay well. I worked with Sinatra in Atlantic City. Man, that was pressure beyond belief. I had to wear a tuxedo to open for a July gig in Atlantic City. My tux was soaked through even before I went on. Frank Jr. was the bandleader, and he asked me if I was nervous. Yeah, I said, and he replied, ‘don’t be you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t belong.’ But you’re not part of these people. I opened the door for Frank’s wife; I think she looked at my shoe. Frank was enjoying the concert thing, and he was tolerant of my presence. But the concert scene wasn’t paying much.”

“I remember some really great moments. Working a main stage in Vegas is great. I worked Radio City Music Hall and that is really something. There was that time in the Universal Amphitheater in LA; I have a totally burned out video of that which my cousin recorded. The ovation I got that night was amazing; I’ll never forget that one. My version of ‘Whole Lotta Love’ by Led Zeppelin had energy and I was really banging on the guitar; it was a perfect opening for Rodney – that was a good one. Rod liked Sam Kinnison, he was a pal of Lenny Bruce. He liked people that were caustic and I’m not that way, so I couldn’t sustain that thing. But it was a time.”