Dan Kelley -- Piano -- The Shingle Shakers
In 1968, Dan Kelley was playing piano at a lounge in downtown Columbia to make a little extra money for college. One day, Dan got a call from Pete Kersten, who asked if he would be interested in playing Dixieland music four nights a week at Shakey's Pizza Parlor. It happened that the house band at Shakey's, The Banjos, Buckets and Brass, had just moved across town to play at the Village Inn Pizza Parlor. Pete had agreed to remain at Shakey's, and he needed a piano player…right now!
Dan had never played Dixieland or ragtime piano before but he was intrigued by it, having frequently visited Gaslight Square in his home town St. Louis. With Pete's tutoring, Dan got up to speed pretty quickly. Other musicians started sitting in with Pete and Dan, and before long the group had outgrown the tiny platform they played on. Pete built a much bigger stage at one end of the room, and outfitted it to look like someone's front porch, complete with railings and a shake shingle roof. Thus Shakey's Shingle Shakers was born.
Dan played piano and sang with the Shingle Shakers until Uncle Sam called in the fall of 1971. By 1974, the band had stopped playing regularly in Columbia, but Mike, Chris, Steve and Dan played frequently in St. Louis on the Mississippi River excursion boats, often joined by Larry and Rich. These gigs continued into the early 1980's.
Dan has sung in barbershop quartets since high school, and is a member of the Ambassadors of Harmony, the current Barbershop Harmony Society international championship chorus. He is active in the music program at his church, where he sings in the church choir and directs a handbell choir. Dan is an accomplished pipe organist, and frequently plays at churches in the St. Louis area.
Dan works at AT&T in the finance department, where he manages the capital budget and tracking programs. He lives in west St. Louis County with his "kids," Golden Retrievers Jasper and Lucy.
