Austin, Texas native Danny Schmidt has built a cult following as a modern day poet and classic troubadour. A true renaissance man and consummate artist, his work is rich and wide-ranging. His lyrics have been published as poetry in literary journals. His photographs from the road have been included in photo exhibits and sold as fine art prints. He has written children’s stories. He designs his own album artwork and codes his own website. And, he has produced albums for friends, including Red House artist Carrie Elkin. Danny is a man of many media.
His life has followed a similar multi-dimensional path. He dropped out of college to pursue a more holistic and connected life on a self-sustainable communal farm. He worked as a sawyer at a sawmill in rural Virginia and as a preschool teacher in Texas. He helped found a musician’s cooperative in Charlottesville, and he is now currently working on a web-based cooperative of musicians.
While the creative expressions along his unorthodox path have taken many forms, it’s Danny’s music, and songwriting in particular, that have garnered him the most notoriety, winning him the 2007 Kerrville New Folk Award and attracting the attention of venerable roots label Red House Records.
Danny’s label debut Instead the Forest Rose to Sing was recorded in Austin by Mark Hallman (David Byrne, Ani Difranco, Eliza Gilkyson) and mixed folk, Americana and indie-rock sounds. It garnered rave reviews and made No Depression’s “Best of 2009” list. The #2 most played folk album that year, it also solidified Danny’s place as one of today’s most important voices and led him to be highlighted by Rich Warren in the Chicago Tribune as one of the top 50 most significant folk songwriters in the last 50 years.
On his latest solo album Man of Many Moons, Danny returns to an intensely intimate solo acoustic sound. Both thoughtful and playful, the songs dance around themes of personal evolution and an ever-fluid relationship with commitment.
Danny and fellow Red House artist Carrie Elkin have been performing together for the last few years and have teamed up for their duo debut For Keeps. This release from two of Austin’s award-winning songwriters contains many of the songs that have been enjoyed by thousands of fans at their live shows.
When not on the road, Danny lives in Austin where he likes to cook, brew beer and wine and take in as many Texas Longhorns games as he can.
