Danny Schmidt

Singer/songwriter Danny Schmidt spent his earliest years amid the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, later relocating first to Austin, Texas, and subsequently to Virginia. A sequence of jobs ranging from sawmill labor to communal living preceded his settlement in Charlottesville, where participation in the Acoustic Charlottesville musician's co-op yielded his debut recording, Live at the Prism Coffeehouse. Two further studio albums followed before mounting frustration with the music industry drew him back to Austin with plans to pursue film and video production. The intended employer had already shut down by the time he arrived, and a cancer diagnosis soon followed. Without health insurance, he issued the self-produced Home Recordings CD to cover mounting medical costs. The release not only cleared those bills and restored his health but also reignited his musical career. The New Folk Award at the Kerrville Folk Festival arrived in 2007. Waterbug Records licensed Little Grey Sheep for release the next year, after which Red House Records signed him and issued Instead the Forest Rose to Sing on March 10, 2009, a collection of songs "exploring the concept of money and its worth in today's world." Man Of Many Moons emerged in 2011 as a sparse and intimate affair, while 2014's For Keeps found him collaborating with partner and fellow Red House Records artist Carrie Elkin, whom he married that same year. The mystical Owls appeared independently in 2015 on the Live Once Records imprint.