Rod MacDonald (born August 17, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter, novelist, and educator.[1] He was a "big part of the 1980s folk revival in Greenwich Village clubs",[2] performing at the Speakeasy, The Bottom Line, Folk City, and the "Songwriter's Exchange" at the Cornelia Street Cafe. He co-founded the Greenwich Village Folk Festival, now a non-profit, and is still the President and co-producer of its events. He is perhaps best known for his songs "American Jerusalem", about the "contrast between the rich and the poor in Manhattan" (Sing Out!), "A Sailor's Prayer", "Coming of the Snow", "Every Living Thing", and "My Neighbors in Delray", a description of the September 11 hijackers' last days in Delray Beach, Florida, where MacDonald has lived since 1995. His songs have been covered by Dave Van Ronk, Shawn Colvin, Four Bitchin' Babes, Jonathan Edwards, Garnet Rogers, Joe Jencks, and others. His 1985 recording "White Buffalo" is dedicated to Lakota Sioux ceremonial chief and healer Frank Fools Crow, whom he visited in 1981 and 1985, and who appears with MacDonald in the cover photograph. Since 1995 MacDonald has lived in south Florida, where his cd, "Later that Night" was named "Best Local Cd of 2014" by The Palm Beach Post[3] and reached the top ten in national roots music charts. His first novel, The Open Mike, about a young man in the open mike scene of Greenwich Village, was published on December 5, 2014, by Archway Publishing.[4] On December 10, 2020, MacDonald released his 13th solo recording, Boulevard, on Blue Flute Music.[5] On April 14, 2021, his second novel, The American Guerillas, was published by Archway Publications. On June 1, 2023, MacDonald's 14th solo album, Rants And Romance, a collection of 14 new songs and 3 by other songwriters, was released by Blue Flute Music.[6]
MacDonald was born August 17, 1948, in Southington, Connecticut, to Harold Owen MacDonald (born March 12, 1909, in Sherbrooke, NS) and Blanche Joan Woish (born April 7, 1919, in Boston, MA). He began his musical education as a slide trombonist at 11, switching to guitar in his mid-teens as he learned the popular 1960s folk songs. After graduating from The Cheshire Academy in 1966, he attended the University of Virginia, where he was managing editor of the student newspaper The Cavalier Daily and toured statewide with the five-piece folk group The Lovin' Sound. Graduating in 1970 with honors in history, he attended Columbia Law School and joined the Judge Advocate General's Corps, U.S. Navy. He worked summers as a reporter for the Hartford Courant in 1969 and Newsweek in Atlanta (1970) and Washington, DC (1971), for whom he covered the Pentagon Papers trial. In 1972, while at Officer's Training School in Newport, RI, he began working as a solo singer-guitarist at a waterfront bar, The Black Pearl, on a nightly basis. He was honorably discharged as a conscientious objector in August 1972. He graduated law school in 1973 but did not take the bar exam, instead beginning his professional career in music in New York City.
Recordings & tours
MacDonald's first recordings in 1980--"Song of My Brothers" and "The Coming of The Snow"—were included on the Stash Records compilation Cornelia Street: The Songwriters Exchange, named "Best of the Month" by Stereo Review. His first solo album, No Commercial Traffic, was released by Cinemagic Records in 1983; it includes some of his best-known songs, including "American Jerusalem," "Every Living Thing" and "A Sailor's Prayer," which has been recorded by several dozen sea shanty, Renaissance fair and chorale groups. In all, he has released 14 solo recordings on the Cinemagic, Mountain Railroad, Shanachie, Gadfly, Wind River and Blue Flute labels in the US, 9 in Europe (1 on the German label Autogram, 8 on the Swiss label Brambus,) and 21 songs now in the Smithsonian Folkways collection through the (Fast Folk Musical Magazine). He has also recorded 3 cds as lead singer of Big Brass Bed, a Palm Beach County rock and roll band, and appears on numerous compilations of Florida and folk artists. His current label is Blue Flute Music, which also controls most of his publishing.
MacDonald has appeared on stage with many artists, including Pete Seeger, Peter Yarrow, Odetta, Tom Paxton, the Violent Femmes, Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, Dave Van Ronk, Emmylou Harris, Richie Havens, Ani DiFranco, Tom Chapin, Jack Hardy, David Massengill, and Joe Jencks. He has performed at major festivals in Philadelphia, Winnipeg, Florida, South Florida, Riverhawk, Boston, Kerrville, Greenwich Village, Falcon Ridge, New Bedford Summerfest, Port Fairy (Australia), Friuli (Italy), Edinburgh Fringe and Trowbridge (UK), and on the radio program Mountain Stage. He was reportedly the first American singer to tour the newly independent Czech Republic in 1991, and has made 40 tours in Europe since 1985, nearly all of them with NYC bassist Mark Dann. As of spring 2022 he is an active touring artist, and has announced tour dates in the northeastern US in summer 2022.
In May 2011, Brambus Records and Blue Flute Music released Songs Of Freedom, a collection of 16 previously unreleased songs, in Switzerland and the US; Blue Flute also released Big Brass Bed's Dylan Jam + 2, a new set of 9 Bob Dylan compositions and two originals. In May 2014 Blue Flue Music released the solo cd Later That Night, as well as Big Tent, a new cd by Big Brass Bed. Later That Night was named "Best Local Cd of 2014" by The Palm Beach Post[3] and reached the top ten in national roots and folk music charts. In 2017 Blue Flute Music released Rod MacDonald & Mark Dann: Live At Music-Star, a concert DVD recorded in Norderstedt, Germany in April 2016. On May 1, 2018, Blue Flute Music released Beginning Again, MacDonald's 12th solo recording. His 13th, Boulevard, was released December 10, 2020; in March 2021, Boulevard was #11 on the Folk Alliance national folk music chart.
Recent work
After two decades in Greenwich Village, MacDonald moved to south Florida in 1995, where he often performs as a solo guitarist-singer. He is also lead singer of the Dylan cover band Big Brass Bed, named "Best Folk Band" in 2016 by the New Times Broward-Palm Beach,[7] and performs with the Humdingers, with Irish singer Tracy Sands, and with songwriter George Goehring's show "My Life in the Brill Building". The Palm Beach Post has called him one of the "Ten Magnificent Musicians of Palm Beach County".[8] In June 2013 New Times Broward-Palm Beach named him #6 of "Ten Greatest South Florida Folksingers Of All Time."[9] Since 2006 he is also an instructor for the Florida Atlantic University (Lifelong Learning Center), hosting the lecture and performance series "Music Americana", where he was awarded the Distinguished Faculty Award in 2012.[10]
Style
A tenor with a clear voice and wide range, MacDonald is often cited for both his musicality and the content of his songs about political and social events: "Rod MacDonald is a brilliant folk singer and composer. His melodic songs possess words that go straight into your heart and soul." The Press Of Atlantic City ... "A poet with a lot on his mind who has never allowed himself to make points at the expense of making music." The Boston Globe ... "True to the folk tradition, MacDonald is not afraid to get political, take chances, and perhaps shock some people....MacDonald's place in the folk hall of fame is assured by his 'A Sailor's Prayer,' a hymn-styled tune that many people have mistaken for a traditional song." All-Music Guide.[2]
Although usually labeled a folk singer, his musical styles include rock, pop, country, light jazz, and blues. In addition to his work in Greenwich Village and Florida, he has written extensively of experiences on US Indian reservations and in Europe, living in Italy from 1989 to 1992.
Personal life
MacDonald lives in Delray Beach, Florida, with wife Nicole (Hitz) MacDonald, of Chur, Switzerland, and children Elliot and Alena. During the 2020-21 pandemic and shutdown, he has performed a ninety-minute concert each Sunday evening on Facebook, restarted the Greenwich Village Folk Festival as a monthly online series, and released Boulevard, a cd of "my first songs, the first original words and music I wrote and sang for friends, on the street, and in clubs and coffeehouses. Nearly all were never recorded, until 2020."[11]
Discography
Albums
No Commercial Traffic (1983)
White Buffalo (1985)
Highway to Nowhere (1992)
Man on the Ledge (1994)
And Then He Woke Up (1996)
Into the Blue (1999)
Recognition (2002)
Big Brass Bed: A Few Dylan Songs (2003) (band album of Bob Dylancovers)
A Tale of Two Americas (2005)
After The War (2009)
Songs Of Freedom (2011)
Big Brass Bed: Dylan Jam + 2 (2011) (band album of 9 Bob Dylancovers plus 2 originals)
Later That Night (2014)
Big Brass Bed: Big Tent (2014)
Beginning Again (2018)
Boulevard (2020)
Rants And Romance (2023)
DVDs
Rod MacDonald & Mark Dann: Live At Music-Star (2017)
Related Research Articles
James Roger McGuinn is an American musician. He is best known for being the frontman and leader of the Byrds. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his work with the Byrds. As a solo artist he has released 10 albums and collaborated with, among others, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Chris Hillman. The 12-string Rickenbacker guitar is his signature instrument.
Donovan Phillips Leitch, known mononymously as Donovan, is a Scottish musician, songwriter and record producer. He developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelic rock and world music. He has lived in Scotland, Hertfordshire (England), London, California, and—since at least 2008—in County Cork, Ireland, with his family. Emerging from the British folk scene, Donovan reached fame in the United Kingdom in early 1965 with live performances on the pop TV series Ready Steady Go!.
Martin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, and later artists such as Richard Thompson, since he emerged as a young musician in the early days of the folk revival in the UK during the 1960s and 1970s.
Samuel Stephen "Steve" Forbert is an American pop/folk singer-songwriter. His 1979 song "Romeo's Tune" reached No. 11 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and No. 13 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. It also spent two weeks at No. 8 in Canada. Forbert's first four albums all charted on the Billboard 200 chart, with Jackrabbit Slim certified gold. In 2004, his Any Old Time album was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Traditional Folk category. Forbert has released twenty studio and three live albums.
The Clancy Brothers were an influential Irish folk music group that developed initially as a part of the American folk music revival. Most popular during the 1960s, they were famed for their Aran jumper sweaters and are widely credited with popularising Irish traditional music in the United States and revitalising it in Ireland, contributing to an Irish folk boom with groups like the Dubliners and the Wolfe Tones.
David Kenneth Ritz Van Ronk was an American folk singer. An important figure in the American folk music revival and New York City's Greenwich Village scene in the 1960s, he was nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street".
The Gaslight Cafe was a coffeehouse in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York. Also known as The Village Gaslight, it opened in 1958 and became notable as a venue for folk music and other musical acts. It closed in 1971.
Eric Andersen is an American folk music singer-songwriter, who has written songs recorded by Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Linda Ronstadt, the Grateful Dead and many others. Early in his career, in the 1960s, he was part of the Greenwich Village folk scene. After two decades and sixteen albums of solo performance he became a member of the group Danko/Fjeld/Andersen.
Album 1700 is the seventh studio album by American folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary, released in 1967. It produced the band's most successful and final hit, a recording of the John Denver song "Leaving on a Jet Plane". The album peaked at number 15 on Billboard magazine's Top LP chart and was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Folk Performance category. Album 1700 was so named because its original LP issue was Warner Bros. Records catalog number W-1700 for the mono version and WS-1700 for the stereo version. It stayed on the charts and rose again in 1969, thanks to the single release of "Leaving on a Jet Plane".
Happy Traum is an American folk musician who started playing music in the 1950s and became a stalwart of the Greenwich Village music scene of the 1960s and the Woodstock music scene of the 1970s and 1980s. For several years, he studied blues guitar with Brownie McGhee, who was a big influence on his guitar style. Happy is most famously known as one half of Happy and Artie Traum, a duo he began with his brother. They released several albums, including Happy and Artie Traum, Double Back, and Hard Times In The Country. He has continued as a solo artist and as founder of Homespun Music Instruction.
The American Heritage Schools are a pair of private, college preparatory, independent, nonsectarian, and co-educational day schools for grades Pre-K 3 through 12. The two campuses together teach 4,200 students and are located in the United States in Plantation, Florida, a suburb just west of Fort Lauderdale in Broward County, and in Delray Beach, Florida, a city just north of Boca Raton in southern Palm Beach County.
Delray Beach is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. The population of Delray Beach as of April 1, 2020 was 66,846 according to the 2020 United States Census. Located 52 miles north of Miami, Delray Beach is in the Miami metropolitan area.
Gustav Adam Maass Jr. (1893–1964) was an American architect working primarily in the Mediterranean Revival style who designed public buildings and private homes in and around Palm Beach, Florida, from the 1920s until his death in 1964.
William Stevens Meredith is an American music and sports writer, journalist, drummer, percussionist and singer. He is best known with his extensive work as music writer in music magazines such as Jazziz which is an international Jazz magazine, Maryland-based JazzTimes, JazzBluesFlorida and Palm Beach Post.
Mike Mineo is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist born in Hollywood, Florida. His musical style encompasses avant-garde, pop, folk, soul, and jazz. He has recorded and self-released four albums on his own independent record label Nevernothing Records, LLC. In March 2016 Mike Mineo moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to further his music career.
Clare Shore is an American composer, music educator mezzo-soprano, and conductor.
"Colour My World" is a song written by American musician James Pankow, one of the founding members of the rock/jazz fusion band Chicago. Part of Pankow's "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon" song cycle/suite, it was recorded for their second album Chicago, also called Chicago II (1970). Terry Kath sings the lead vocal, and Walter Parazaider performs the memorable flute solo.
Bill Muter, also known as Tubavisionary, is an American tuba player, educator and author from South Florida. Muter is known by BuzzFeed as the "tuba player that can beatbox to any hip hop song", and also for his music technique book titled A Practical Approach: Brass Pedagogy Book.
"American Jerusalem" is a song written by singer-songwriter and guitarist Rod MacDonald in 1978. Considered his "signature tune", the nearly-six-minute long song first appeared on MacDonald’s 1983 debut album No Commercial Traffic.
Timothy "Chaz" Stevens is an American political activist, artist, software developer, and entrepreneur from Florida. He is active in local politics in Broward County, and has gained national notoriety for his colorful statewide and national advocacy for the separation of church and state.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
