Although Darling achieved some degree of fame for his solo recordings and as an accompanist for other folk artists, it was as a member of three of the top folk groups of the fifties and sixties that he was best known. He founded The Tarriers with Academy Award winner Alan Arkin (“Little Miss Sunshine”) and Bob Carey, and had a top-10 hit with “The Banana Boat Song” in 1956. The Tarriers appeared in a movie (“Calypso Heat Wave” with Maya Angelou) and made numerous TV appearances, the first being on the Ed Sullivan show. When Pete Seeger left The Weavers to pursue his solo career, he recommended Darling as his replacement, and Darling recorded and toured with The Weavers for four and a half years.

Leaving The Weavers in 1962, Darling formed the Rooftop Singers in order to record "Walk Right In," having no idea this would create a twelve- string guitar craze. Six weeks after its release, "Walk Right In" was the number one song in the nation, and within the next year, twelve-string guitars appeared in many music stores. The Rooftop Singers played most of the major colleges and cities in the United States and Canada, and appeared on such television shows as Hootenanny, the Tonight Show, Steve Allen, and American Bandstand.

Darling’s musical career began as a teenager, when he moved from upstate New York to New York city where he joined the singers and musicians who frequented Washington Square - a folk music Mecca, in which gathered such future notables as Harry Belafonte, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Mary Travers, Bob Gibson, Billy Faier, Frank Hamilton, Tom Paley and others. Out of those early days, before folk music had become a music industry category, Darling, Roger Sprung and Bob Carey, as The Folksay Trio, recorded a new version of "Tom Dooley" with an arrangement that the Kingston Trio adapted to become the first folk music hit of the folk boom of the late fifties and early sixties.

In addition to his group recordings and instrumental accompaniments during the fifties and sixties, Darling recorded three solo LPs and, in 1975, a duet LP with Pat Street, a later member of The Rooftop Singers. Music from this album was used in the film “Forrest Gump,” and Darling’s banjo playing accompanies the Kossoy Sisters in the movie, “O Brother, Where Art Thou.”

In the late seventies, Darling left music for a number of years to pursue other interests, including painting. He returned to recording in 1994 with “Bordertown at Midnight” on Folk Era Records followed, in 2000, by “Child. Child” on Wind River Records. Darling felt that “Child, Child” was his most complete composition, as the title song represented his concern for what he believed to be "the most vital issue of our time – the thoughtful raising of children." "I wanted the album to create a healing experience if listened to as an entire work, in one sitting," said Darling. The record includes new versions of Darling's major hit records, "Walk Right In" and the "Banana Boat Song" as well as traditional folk songs.

During the last few years Darling also spent considerable time writing his autobiography, “I’d Give My Life,” which was published just before his death.

Singer/songwriter Don McLean says about Darling, “Being completely alive in the moment has been Erik’s way of life through music.”

Darling has no immediate survivors, but leaves an abundance of good friends including especially his dear friend and former wife, Joan Darling, and many other dear friends including Bill Svanoe, Al Perrin and Marissa Gehley. A memorial service will be held in October at a time and place yet to be determined.

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