Larry, Dino was a very private person, a near recluse at times. When I was writing my book, I met him at a restaurant in NYC, and tried conducting the interview there, but it was too noisy. Dino invited me to his apartment on East 81st Street near Central Park the following week. He was having the place painted, and there was very little furniture, no gold records, nothing that would make you believe a bona fide rock star lived there. So we sat on the floor. I asked a lot of questions, and Dino happily gave me the answers I needed, much of which went into his chapter. He told me he no longer owned a drumset, but backlined rented drums all the time. I asked Dino to show me his stick twirl, but he couldn't even find a pair of sticks! He was doing a lot of commercial art at that point to make a living.
Dino gave his Yosemite Sam set to a drummer friend down on his luck. He gave another set to Eddie Brigati, that he still has, I believe. I have an old broken Ludwig Speed King pedal, some odd drumsticks, and a gong mallet, all previously owned by Dino, given to me indirectly by Eddie.
I've related the story of the red Rogers snare drum already. It's still for sale at nearly $7000. I wanted that drum really badly!
https://reverb.com/item/61857196-rare-1-of-a-kind-rogers-holiday-snare-2636-hand-signed-dino-danelli-rascals-1960s-red-sparkle
