TETON VILLAGE, Wyo. — Hailed by legitimate music sources and his musician peers as one of the top young guitarists in country rock (or any music), twenty-seven year old Nashville native Daniel Donato will unleash the goods with his quartet this Friday at the Mangy Moose.
Donato cut his teeth busking on the streets of Nashville when he was fourteen. On day two of busking, he wondered into Music City’s legendary Robert’s Western World on Broadway and was blown away by what he saw—the Don Kelley Band, known for a rotating cast of real-deal honkytonk musicians that performed nightly 1996-2020. By age sixteen, Donato had learned the band’s 100-song catalog and became the youngest musician to regularly play with the outfit, digging into classic material of Willie Nelson, Bob Wills, Jimmy Martin, Buck Owens, Bill Monroe, George Jones, Merle Haggard, and beyond.
“I learned how to play music in a way that many acts aren’t doing in the presence climate of where we are and what most people consume,” Donato told KHOL Jackson Hole Community Radio via phone this week, “…which is four musicians getting on stage and listening to each other and playing songs, and improvising and playing it dynamically. It’s a very human and organic experience.”
His brand of Cosmic Country with bandmates Sugar Leg on keys, Mustang McGee on upright and electric basses, and Noah Miller on drums has evolved into improvisational Grateful Dead-inspired Americana and Flying Burrito Brothers-fueled country-rock twang.
“I’ve always fantasized about Wyoming. The amount of nature in the universe that is out there, I can’t wait to play music in [Jackson Hole]. It’s the thrill of a lifetime.”
Ox Presents and KHOL present Daniel Donato, 9 p.m. Friday Sept. 9 at the Mangy Moose. Tickets are $24, available at MangyMoose.com.
