Daniel Donato Gets Cosmic

Calling from his rustic cabin in Tennessee, Daniel Donato is in the middle of woodshedding another of his rootsy ditties. At the age of thirty, the increasingly popular Tele-picker, songwriter and bandleader, who dropped a new LP, Horizons, in August with his band, Cosmic Country, is an old soul in a young man’s body.

“I’m constantly creating songs,” Donato says in a lilting voice infused with unassuming wit. “The longer you do something, the more you end up working on it I guess.”

Donato’s dogged persistence and labor have paid off, with a growing number of fans boarding his train of twang and rolling full-steam ahead. You can hop on board at the Ogden Theatre, where Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country will play a two-night run starting November 7.

“I like to remind myself that everything is living, that I’m a work in progress, and that we’re all just operating in the now,” muses Donato, who estimates that he and his band have played approximately 100 shows so far this year. “It’s that Eckhart Tolle or Ram Dass thing. It’s rooted in Eastern thought. I try not to get too worked up about what might be coming, because it’s usually not what you imagine it to be anyway.”

Whatever comes to pass, the philosophical Donato seems to be prepared for it. He says Cosmic Country has experienced steadily increasing success in recent years, and he takes the newfound attention in stride.

“We’re definitely seeing bigger crowds,” he reports. “I feel like we’ve been growing in the right ways, though. It all feels pretty similar to when I first started [gigging]. I began performing with the Don Kelley band when I was seventeen, playing American honky-tonk music and traditional stuff [at the legendary Robert’s Western World bar] on Broadway in Nashville. I’m still pulling on the same resources I developed there.” 

Donato’s wide array of influences includes famous country artists like Bob Wills, Buck Owens, Chet Atkins, Dwight Yoakam and Waylon Jennings, as well as some lesser-known industry journeymen, and classic rockers such as Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Jimmy Page, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix. The country-inspired picker, who was born in Bradenton, Florida, and also lived in New Jersey with his family before settling in Tennessee, says he first started playing guitar at the age of twelve.

“When I started out, I was into a lot of the fundamental big-name players,” Donato recalls. “Around when I turned fourteen, my studious nature kicked in and I started discovering people like Roy Nichols” — best known as the lead guitarist for Merle Haggard and the Strangers — “and a lot of super talented musicians, including James Burton, Don Rich, Brent Mason, Johnny Hiland and Hank Garland. I got into a bunch of hot pickers who were on some amazing recordings and who played in great bands but whose names aren’t very well known.”

Donato diligently studied and absorbed the work of those he admired, and at sixteen, he was gifted a comprehensive collection of Grateful Dead recordings, which the young guitar prodigy dove into with enthusiasm.

“I received an amazing collection of CDs from my U.S. history teacher,” Donato remembers fondly. “That was a great learning process for me. I relished all the details and the peculiarities of the Dead’s different eras. All of these influences fit together harmoniously for me. If it feels right, I can hear myself in it, and I try to create something new as I start to channel it. I still absorb stuff as I travel and play around the country. It all blends into cosmic country.”

Donato has added other psychedelic jambands, including Phish, to the music he sometimes covers, though he still hews to his native Nashville honky-tonk roots.

“That old music has a lot of power,” he enthuses. “It’s aimed at the soul, which is the place from which it comes. It’s a big branch on the cosmic country tree. Those old honky-tonk bands were hot. It’s interesting to see how the world around you changes when you stick to your guns and just do what feels true to you.”

Horizons, which was produced by Vance Powell (The White Stripes, Wolfmother, Martina McBride and Trey Anastasio), features fifteen tracks penned by Donato, including an instrumental number, “Hangman’s Reel,” and the old-school sounding song “Better Deal Blues,” which is an homage to Donato’s passion for the classic Bakersfield sound that developed in the ’50s and ’60s in California.

“I send my tunes out to the universe,” says Donato, who last played in Colorado when Cosmic Country opened for the String Cheese Incident in July at Red Rocks. “[Horizons] is the highest-frequency cosmic-country album we’ve made yet. It’s a journey. I love writing these songs and being a part of the legacy and tradition of American music.”


Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country, 8 p.m. Friday, November 7, and Saturday, November 8, at the Ogden Theatre.