Four years later, at the end of an NRBQ show at the Rusty Nail in Sunderland, drummer Tom Staley was back on the tour bus when the crowd wanted another encore. Adams summoned Mr. Ardolino to the stage and, though he had never been in a band, Mr. Ardolino played “Do You Feel It’’ without missing a beat. A few months later, Adams told Mr. Ardolino that Staley was leaving NRBQ and asked the 19-year-old if he wanted to join.
“It was like being high on drugs all the time after that,’’ Mr. Ardolino told the Globe last summer.
Mr. Ardolino, who went on to record and tour with NRBQ relentlessly over the next 30 years, becoming a favorite of many A-list artists, died Friday in Kindred Hospital in Springfield.
He was 56 and had lived in Springfield before being hospitalized two months ago with what close friends described as illnesses related to alcoholism. NRBQ announced his death on the band’s Facebook page.
“Tommy deserves an entire wing in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,’’ singer Bonnie Raitt told the Globe last summer. “There’s Charlie Watts, and there’s Tom Ardolino. That’s it.’’
Though sometimes overshadowed by NRBQ’s frontmen - Adams, bassist Joey Spampinato, and guitarist “Big’’ Al Anderson - Mr. Ardolino’s distinctive swinging style was an essential ingredient in NRBQ’s signature sound. He might have looked relaxed, lazy even beneath a mop of unruly curls, a toothy grin on his face, but Mr. Ardolino kept a mighty beat. He also recorded and performed with the likes of John Sebastian, Bob Dylan, and Brian Wilson.
“Between 1974 and whenever I left the band, I can tell you that that was the baddest-ass rhythm section that ever lived,’’ Anderson said.
“NRBQ was kind of destined not to make it big because critics and radio couldn’t put a name on it. But we were so great because we were playing 250 nights a year, and we started thinking with one mind.’’
