My name is Steve Gorospe. I was born in Prince George's County, Maryland in July 1970 to Ernie and Carolyn Gorospe. A few years before my birth, Dad and Danny forged their friendship in The Offbeats. Along with the other members of the band, those friendships remain today lasting some 50-plus years. It is the close brotherhood among the members that allowed me to grow up feeling as if those guys, my dad's best friends, were "uncles" of mine.

My earliest memory of the music is from 1975. I was five years old. The members of The Offbeats got together at my parent's house for a jam session. I sat on the steps leading into the basement recreation room and listened to the band for hours. Sitting there listening and watching my dad play bass, Danny play guitar, Dick Heintze play his Hammond, and the rest of the guys all rocking and rolling with songs from the 1950's and 1960's had a major impact on me. I was only five years old and didn't quite comprehend what I was witnessing, but all I knew from that day on was that I wanted to do what those guys were doing. I didn't understand the feeling I had, or that the music was causing that feeling. I just knew that I wanted to be able to create that "feeling" myself one day. And I remember it was something about the guitar that impacted me the most. Hey, I was only five years old. I didn't know that my dad's friend was already a guitar legend. I didn't even know what a "legend" was yet!

Move ahead nine years to when I was 14 years old. Besides the oldies rock and roll, I was also into new rock music. My favorite rock band to this day is KISS, and Ace Frehley (the Spaceman lead-guitarist) was the guy. I wanted a guitar exactly like his. Little did I know then that a Gibson Les Paul was a top-of-the-line instrument. My dad started me out with a cheapo Kent Les Paul copy, black like Ace's. Dad drew some chord positions for me on paper and I took it from there, spending hours a day or night playng along with records and tapes.

When Dad saw that I was serious about playing guitar, and was a fairly quick learner, he and my mom surprised me the next year for Christmas with the real deal, a brand new 1985 Gibson Les Paul Custom (tobacco burst). I played that guitar endlessly. A few days after Christmas, Danny stopped by the house to see the guitar and set it up. He and Dad and I sat in the rec-room while Danny filed the grooves in the nut and made a few adjustments. Danny sat there for 10 minutes pulling off chords and licks. Then he looked at me with a slight hint of disappointment. My heart began to sink as I said to him, "Okay Danny...what's wrong with my brand new guitar?" He continued to shake his head with that slight hint of disappointment and said, "This guitar is perfect. NO guitar is supposed to play this perfect. Do you wanna sell it?!?" What a relief! I didn't know whether to hug him or throw a guitar tuner at him for making me worry.

Around this time I had formed my first high-school band called Destiny, covering all the cool rock songs of the day. The guys in my band are still my friends today. History repeating itself a generation later? Maybe, at least with the friendships! For a high-school band, we were pretty good. We won a major Battle of the Bands contest. And we ended up playing some gigs with Dad and Danny and the other original members of The Offbeats, now reunited as The American Music Company Band. Destiny played four sets a gig, during the breaks of The American Music Company Band. I used to sit in with the AMC Band from time-to-time and play those oldies that I love so much. Danny would throw me lead breaks, and I'd watch and listen as closely as I could to learn as much as I could.

I could go on for volumes about Danny and the band and music and my band and my experiences and blah blah blah. Too many things to recite. Aside from music, I got into streetrods because of my dad and Danny. I love 'em today. I prefer a streetrod or a classic muscle car over a new vehicle any day. Dad and I were at Danny's house one day talking cars. This was a few days after Danny had received the very first attempt by Fender for what was to become the Danny Gatton Signature Model Telecaster. Danny went into the house and brought the guitar out to the truck where he and Dad had been sitting on the tailgate talking cars and music. Danny handed the guitar to ME and said, "Check it out." Yeah, right. What was I going to be able to tell him? But that was Danny, just a genuine guy. He actually and honestly asked me, "What do you think?" Trying not to sound like an idiot, I told him, "The neck doesn't feel like your '53 Tele. It doesn't feel right." [Note: I had played his '53 before during one of those combined band jobs with my band of teenagers.] Danny said to me, "Yeah, I think you're right. This [guitar] is going back to Fender with notes. They can't put my name on it until they get it right." Danny sure made me feel important that day. That was his nature. He never put you down and always pushed you further and better than you thought you could be or play.

I had graduated from high school by this time, and was in college at the University of Maryland in College Park (Go Terps!!). I also had started working part-time as an intern for an aerospace company at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. On another visit to Danny's with my dad, I took Danny a mission patch and sticker for the project I was working on at NASA. Danny was always interested in what I was doing, and how I was doing in school and at work. I figured Danny might put the sticker on a file cabinet or something. Danny took that big sticker and stuck it dead center on the front of his old refridgerator in the garage; the 'fridge that kept the beer cold for those hot days building streetrods there in the garage. You have to understand something, the 'fridge was like a football stadium's Wall of Fame. It was the highest honor in the garage. Yes, it sounds silly. But there was my NASA sticker right in the middle of all the car and engine stickers. [Note: Danny and Jay Monterose once owned a sheet-metal shop together, and had a contract with NASA building special containers, among other things.] Even when I got very discouraged with school, Danny told me, "Finish school and get your degree. Don't rely on music to make a living, like I did. Music is no kind of living."

The last time I saw Danny was on a Saturday when Dad and I met up with him, his brother Brent, and good friend Jack Jensen in Colonial Beach, Virginia for a nostalgic drag race and car show. Danny was relieved to be out of his Elektra contract and was moving on with another band (Danny, John Previti, and Timm Biery), and talked for hours with Dad and Jack about the car parts they all needed for their streetrods. They made a list of stuff Danny and Jack would pick up in Carlisle (PA) during his upcoming semi-annual trip.

Later that week, while at work early in the morning on October 4 1994, my mom called me and was very upset. She said that Dad had gone to Danny's to be with his family and to help keep the media out. "Why, what are you talking about?", I asked her. Then the words came that crushed my soul and still haunt me today. "Danny died last night." Within minutes, my co-workers who knew my friendship with Danny were coming into my office. One brought a small TV where I watched the news stories about Danny unfold for a few minutes. Then I couldn't watch anymore. My boss even told me to go home to be where I needed to be. I spent the afternoon in shock with my mom at my parent's house. My dad got home later that evening.

To this day, no-one knows for sure why Danny committed suicide that night in 1994. There has been plenty of speculation, and even a book that tries to paint . But the truth is, no-one will ever know for sure. Not Danny's closest friends. Not his family.

Many of Danny's friends honored his memory at Danny's memorial service. A week later, one afternoon while at college in-between classes, it occurred to me that I could honor my friends' memory in a way that no-one else had. You see, there was this fairly new computer thing called "the Internet" and the "world wide web". You could create files with a new text markup scheme called "HTML" and view the pages on-line with a cool piece of software called a "web browser". And so this site began. A handful of pages, some graphics (the only scanner I knew about was in one of the graphics labs on campus), and doing something called "hosting" the pages on my student account at school, I was able to start the site that so many of you have contributed to over the years and helped make what you see today.

When I found out that Norma (Gatton, Danny's mom and owner of NRG Records) was going to start putting out Danny's unreleased music again, she and I sat down and talked. She didn't know what this whole "web" thing was, but I told her I could help her spread her Danny Gatton Newsletter all over the world at once. I didn't want money. I just wanted her input, and to help her and Danny's family out any way I could. With a web site collaboration under way, Norma asked me if I knew how to create inserts for CDs and such. And so began another way I could help; I designed or redesigned several of the NRG releases, and created posters, and had a professional print shop (Beach Brothers Printing, Inc., whom I was doing some computer consulting for) print the CD inserts and posters you may have been lucky enough to acquire before NRG Records was forced to close its doors.

I'm still in the Information Technology and Assurance business. And I'm still playing music. Today I'm playing music with my dad in The American Music Company Band. I still play my '85 Les Paul. With the AMC Band, I mainly play my very own Danny Gatton Signature Model Telecaster.

I miss Danny every day. Not mainly as a musician, but as a friend, as my dad's friend, as a mentor-in-many-ways, and as probably one of the nicest and most genuine people I have ever known.

Danny, this web site is for you. For always being kind and honest. For being one of my mom and dad's best friends. For being one of my friends. For always lending a helping hand whenever you could. (For letting me store my Gran Prix in your garage.) For always treating me with respect. For always listening. For your inspiration. And for leaving us with your music - the best biography that could be written.

This site is also for Norma. Norma, without you, none of this would have been possible...in so many ways!

And the site is for you, Danny's fans. Thank you for your continued visits. Thank you for your extremely generous content contributions. I hope you enjoy the site, and continue to do so.

-Steve Gorospe