There are piano men ... and then there are piano men. Around these parts Danny Beal is the piano man — and born storyteller. Ask anyone who’s been in the audience at one of his shows.

Take the annual Downeast Goodtime Hour and a Half, now a tradition at the Opera House here in Boothbay Harbor. There’s the annual letter from his cousin Elihu from back Downeast, the “news” headlines from “the bold coast, the Midcoast, inland and offshore.” Cue the laughter and hearty chuckles ... and the piano.

“I remember the first time I heard Garrison Keillor doing his Prairie Home Companion on the radio,” said Danny. “I thought, hey, this guy stole my idea! Singing, storytelling, great musical guests ...”

Danny's musical guests for the “Goodtime Hour” are also friends — The Holy Mackerels and/or The Boneheads, with surprise guests including local musicians and some from afar.

Mark “Jehovah” Stover of the Mackerels met Danny in 1977 at the University of Maine at Machias and the two hit it off immediately. Since then they’ve been in many bands together over the years here in the Boothbay region beginning with the Hole in the Wall Gang back in the late ’70s. Other local musicians in the “Gang” were Billy Sherman, Jeff Frasier, Frank Marston and Brian Howe. Mark’s invitation to join the band was Danny's initial introduction to this region. And he's loved it here ever since — not that Mark didn’t have to do some convincing.

“Danny said he was playing with a band back home in Jonesport and they already had a lot of gigs lined up. I said, ‘C'mon Danny, it's gonna be so much fun we're gonna be playing all over southern Maine,’” Mark recalled. “He said ‘I don't know, I don't know’ ... The next day, the very next day, Danny calls me back and says 'I packed up my s*** and I'm on my way!’ I'll never forget the sight of him swinging into the parking lot of the bar in Belfast … his red Vega packed to the gills.”

The Hole in the Wall Gang was followed by the Hendricks Head Band (with the addition of Brian Rittershaus), the Walking Wounded (with Jerry Watson), and The Shags (with Dicky Spofford, Arthur Webster, Paul Johnson, Don Viens and Lefty).

“Dave (Thomson) told us people really loved it when Danny or Lefty played with us at Gray's Wharf (now Herringbones),” said Mark. “With Danny we could play a lot of Motown and other dance music.”

Danny was also playing solo gigs around the 'Ha-bah' including Geptettos, McSeagulls, and a regular Wednesday night gig at The Thistle Inn “back in the day” when it was Leone's place. “It really was like ‘Cheers’ before the show was ever on the air with lots of colorful characters. They had a wonderful old piano. I can still remember my first song there. I looked around the room and sang “Behind Closed Doors.” 

By the early ’80s, Danny had “nestled” into long weekend gigs at the Tugboat Inn on Commercial Street — and he's still there today. “Unquestionably the Tugboat lounge is my favorite room to play in Boothbay. There's a chance to be intimate with people,” Danny said. “You can talk to them like you're in their living room ... It's been a joy for me to play that room. An absolute joy. We've had that room rockin' over the years. I really like interacting with the people, I really do. They feel like my friends. There are times we get silly there about something that ends in everyone laughing and sometimes I can't get through the song I'm singing afterward.”

Danny jokingly says he doesn't add to his repertoire of songs as much as he probably should, still, Danny estimates he’s got a good couple hundred songs down now, some of which have been requests. 

In addition to gigs in the Boothbay region in the summer months, Danny had steady off season gigs as the piano-playing entertainer for Royal Caribbean cruise ships (for three years) thanks to travel agent Andy Holmes. Between 1990 and 2001 he traveled to Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Germany.

Reminisced Danny, “There was this wonderfully dressed, middle-aged Swedish woman at this place I was playing in Ostersund. I had just finished a song and announced, in Swedish, that I was taking a break and would be back in 15 minutes. The woman says to me, 'I have a wish for you. When you come back can you play 'Sweet Balls of Fire?'

“After I came back from my break I played 'Great Balls of Fire.' When the song was over, the woman looked at me and smiled. And then she started falling backwards — pretty rapidly onto the floor — and the poor thing hit hard. Before this, there'd been no indication that she was drunk ... It was sort of like watching Jackie O giving a tour of the White House and then falling down the stairs ... Everybody in the room said I should keep playing. They just made a circle around her and kept dancing. (Insert laughing.) I stopped playing when the paramedics showed up ... I wanted to find out if she was still alive, and God bless her, she was.”

Jordan is one of the exotic locations Danny's been, and not just for a visit. He lived there with his now former wife (soing some research), and their sons, Joshua and Gordon, when the boys were 6 and 3. “I watched the boys and picked up a little Arabic. I played at private parties mostly,” recalled Danny. “Sometimes the Jordanian girls would touch their (the boys’) hair. It was blonde — not something they were used to seeing. It took them awhile to adjust to that!”

Beal lives in Kansas City when he's not in the Boothbay region; it's where his boys — Joshua, 14, and Gordon, 11 — now live with their mother. Danny substitute teaches at the fourth grade level, but (and this is hard to believe), finding a place to play isn’t as easy as one might think. He did play at a club called The Phoenix, years ago, but jazz and the blues are king in those parts.

Come summer, Danny will return to Boothbay, to his gig at Tugboat and others around town, including a “room” of a different kind, the Wilson Chapel at Ocean Point where he's been the organist for 33 years. When he first arrives Danny will check into “The Beal Suite” — there's even a plaque on the door — at Mark and Bonnie Stover's for a few weeks and again at the end of the season before returning to Kansas City.

“I've played in exotic places, dives, beautiful five-star hotels and biker bars ... but I'm never happier than when I'm in Boothbay.”