Daniel Donato is a young guitar phenomenon you need to hear. Especially if you like country or the jam band scene, Donato is, currently, “it.” 

Donato is an encyclopedia of the Fender Telecaster (since 1950) and all the greats who played one; he’s also a latter-day disciple of The Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia. A pro since his Nashville, Tennessee, club days at the age of 14, Donato is now 28, fronting his own band and bringing singing and songwriting to the fore.

His first full-length album of original music, Reflector, is decidedly contemporary while remaining traditional. 

On stage at The Clyde Theatre on Thursday, May 30, you’ll see Donato and his three bandmates playing live, clean, and with no backing tracks or studio trickery. Local newgrass favorites Debutants have been added as openers for the show.

Staying true

“Cosmic Country” is more than a band name.

“Aesthetic, approach, form, intention: All the things frequency,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to name certain things or classify them into what they do functionally.”

Cosmic Country are riding high. “Dance in the Desert” is the breezy single and video, brimming with country licks over a disco-rock beat. The rallying cry of Reflector, however, is “Lose Your Mind,” an invitation to “lose your mind in the song,” and give over to the sheer joy of music — of which there is plenty on this 1-hour, 5-minute album.

Everybody asks Donato about his burning guitar licks, so I asked about his new focus: songwriting. 

“I definitely studied, and I’ve definitely collaborated,” he said. “I write a lot with the members of my band. I have Chandler Brown. My friend Marshall Abbott, we write a lot of songs together. 

“But honestly, to me, I’m just trying to shoot for truth with lyrics. I’ve been trying to seek the truth my whole life, and I’ve been trying to speak the truth as well. I think a large part of it is just getting out of the way of what’s already indwelling within you, and just allowing that to speak, and being a conduit for that to speak, and having faith and courage in the way that you see the world.

“Because everyone sees the world in their own way, and I think as a society we tend to deny that. Because to accept that really makes things a lot more complex than they already are,” he laughed.

Turning serious, he opines, “The whole concept of America is the glorified righteousness of an individual pursuing their own perspective and take on the way that the world, and reality, which proceeds from truth, is coming into form.

“The thing with songwriting in Nashville is people put up a lot of rules, or they put up a lot of forms, or they have a lot of faith in patterns and stuff,” he said. “I had years of trying to write with writers who do that. I wasn’t able to get any goals out of me when I was doing that. I wasn’t able to get anything that I thought was enduring. So, for me, writing is mostly me being by myself and coming up with something. Then I have some friends that I’ll bring those findings to, and then we can refine it into a form that’s functional.”

Piano’s role

The secret sauce in Cosmic Country’s sound is an old recipe, but one that has not been heard in country music in a long time: a guitarist trading hot licks with a pianist. 

Donato’s partner is the amazing young Nathan Aronowitz, on piano, Hammond organ, and clavinet. Aronowitz’s piano comes to the fore as often as the guitar.

Listening to Reflector, which was released in November, I recalled artists like Marty Robbins circa 1960, who paired guitarist Grady Martin with pianist Floyd Cramer. 

When I asked Donato, it turns out I was exactly right. 

“Back in the day of Hargus ‘Pig’ Robbins and Floyd Cramer, that’s what you hear on all those great Loretta Lynn records and those Marty Robbins records, and everything that’s kicking around in those golden days of Nashville, and American values, and imagination,” he said. “There was always such a sound that, to me, was so literally American, just in terms of the hardware — of a clean Fender electric guitar playing with an acoustic piano. But I also think, ambitiously and conceptually, it’s a great unification of contrasts that is just so melodically alive and functional.

“It’s very hard to find that, you know,” Donato said of his chemistry with Aronowitz. “The first mentor that I ever had that was a musician was definitely one of the most talented pianists alive, Tim McDonald. And so in the unconscious seeds or soil of my mind, everything that’s ever sowed musically, it tends to have the resonance of piano going on in what I’m hearing.”

The proof is in the scorching instrumental “Sugar Leg Rag,” where Donato and Aronowitz shred like crazy. It’s an homage to the immortal guitar anthem “Sugar-Foot Rag,” originally by Hank Garland in 1949, and covered by many, especially Junior Brown in the ’90s and John 5 in the ’00s.

Will McGee on bass and Will Clark on drums round out the propulsive Cosmic Country sound.

Learning process

When I spoke with Donato, he was in San Francisco. None other than Phil Lesh, bass player of The Grateful Dead, hand-picked Donato to be his lead guitarist for a concert May 9. At 84, Lesh is literally three times Donato’s age. 

“None of that’s lost on me,” Donato laughed again. “It’s quite a marvel.

“The way that I pursue everything is always as a student, and I try to enter the stage as a child every time. I fortunately started on stage when I was just 14 years old, so it’s not very hard for me to relate to the child that is within me and just go and learn, and not know. Because not knowing is really the thing that I’ve taken from playing with other musicians and brothers in frequency that have more experience in space and time than I do. Their value center, where they aim themselves and their imagination, is sometimes startling in contrast to that in which a younger musician might intuitively find themselves focusing upon. So that’s good information to know, because then you can know where to look, to feel, where to perceive, and where to not look, and where to not be distracted in everything that is kind of born from that logos as a whole.

“I think playing with Phil has been my favorite out of any of the opportunities that I’ve been fortunate enough to have lived in. He’s very intentional, imaginative, faithful, and discerning, and has a lot of abandon. All of these contrasting values, when unified, create something very powerful. So, you know, there’s a lot going on,” Donato’s mirth brims over again.

As for me and you, if you get down to the Clyde on the 30th, we don’t need to be ace musicians or philosophers like Donato to feel the joy. Cosmic Country want to help you lose your mind in the song.