Dick Kniss, a Bassist for Peter, Paul and Mary, Dies at 74

[Fansome]

The New York Times

January 28, 2012
Dick Kniss, a Bassist for Peter, Paul and Mary, Dies at 74
By BRUCE WEBER

Dick Kniss, a self-taught musician who for more than 40 years played stand-up bass behind Peter, Paul and Mary, becoming a veritable fourth member of the folk-singing trio, died on Wednesday in Kingston, N.Y. He was 74.

The cause was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said his wife, Diane. He lived in Saugerties, N.Y.

Mr. Kniss (as in knish, the k is not silent) also had an eight-year association with the singer-songwriter John Denver and helped write one of his biggest hits, “Sunshine on My Shoulders.”

A sideman in jazz bands early in his career, Mr. Kniss was hired by Peter Yarrow, Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers to be their bass player in 1964, not long after they recorded their early hits “Puff the Magic Dragon” and Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.” He accompanied them throughout the 1960s as they became, with their sweet harmonies, earnest activism and flower-power message, one of the decade’s signature musical groups.

Peter, Paul and Mary broke up as the decade ended, and Mr. Kniss went to work with Denver, another popular, sweet-tempered folk-singing activist. But when the trio reunited in 1978, Mr. Kniss once again became their bassist and appeared with them until Ms. Travers’s death in 2009. He made his final appearance with Mr. Yarrow and Mr. Stookey in December that year.

Mr. Kniss was as much an improvisationalist as he was a timekeeper. “Basically he was a jazz bassist who didn’t think in terms of the pop point of view,” Mr. Yarrow said in a telephone interview on Friday, “and he really would develop melodic lines to complement our voices.”

In a separate interview, Mr. Stookey said Mr. Kniss was not an ideal studio player because he found repeating riffs or phrases laborious; onstage, however, he said, Mr. Kniss was inventive, especially when a singer was soloing. “He had this capacity to weave countermelodies,” Mr. Stookey said. “He was the master of when to answer. In folk music, we’re telling a story. The guitars would begin it, but Dick was an orchestrator, and his entry often signified a particular turning point in a song.”

Richard Lawrence Kniss was born in Portland, Ore., on April 24, 1937. His father left the family when he was very young. Reared by his mother, Bernice, he was a bit of a drifter into his late teens, never graduating from high school and focusing on his future only when he found music. His first instrument was the guitar, though, as his wife tells the story, he was lousy at it.

“Someone suggested he play the bass because it didn’t have so many strings,” Ms. Kniss said. “And he just became passionate about it.”

He began an itinerant music career in San Francisco, then moved to Troy, N.Y., to play in the short-lived trio Dick, Dick and Nick before landing in New York City. He was playing in a band led by the clarinetist and saxophonist Woody Herman when he heard that Peter, Paul and Mary were looking for a bassist.

In addition to his wife, whom he met while he was playing a gig in the Poconos — “I was a fan,” she said — and married in 1969, he is survived by their two sons, Jonathan and Peter; a son from a previous relationship, Richard Manders; two sisters, Carol Smith and Karen Stensrud; a half-brother, Lewis Johnson; and seven grandchildren.

Mr. Kniss played with Denver from 1970 to 1978, was featured on many of his recordings and wrote “Sunshine on My Shoulders” with him and Mike Taylor. But he joined the band simply because he needed the work. In 1970, Denver had not yet become the clear-voiced crooner of popular, sentimental ballads like “Annie’s Song” and “Rocky Mountain High,” though he had written “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” which Peter, Paul and Mary turned into a No. 1 hit in 1969.

Denver asked him to play electric bass, which he did for the only time in his career.

“Back then when you flew, the bass was carried in its own seat in the plane, like a child, and John Denver couldn’t afford it,” Diane Kniss recalled. Denver asked Mr. Kniss to set the stand-up instrument aside and play the electric. “Denver said, ‘When we get some money, the first thing we’ll do is bring it back,’ ” she said. “And that’s what he did.”