Cosmic Country
The guitar ace and his group Cosmic Country capture a pair of shows played the same night in 2025 in Nashville for the breathless three-hour-plus Ryman to Robert's
Daniel Donato was only a teenager the first time he stopped me dead in my tracks. It was a random night in 2013 at Robert’s Western World, the last true honky-tonk on Broadway in Nashville, and Donato was mesmerizing the beer-drinking crowd with his solo in the Allman Brothers’ “Ramblin’ Man.” At the time, the New Jersey native was filling the role of lead guitar prodigy in the Don Kelley Band, a group known for its lifer frontman and a revolving door of young, hotshot guitarists.
But there was something about Donato, all fresh-faced and long-haired, that stood out. Whether he was chicken-pickin’ through “Workin’ Man Blues” or summoning the high desert gallop of “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” the sounds he pulled out of his Telecaster struck a nerve like nothing else on Broadway. And the fact that he looked even younger than the 18-year-old he was then, only made it more surreal: Yes, the best musicians in the world really do play in Nashville, Tennessee. When the tip bucket was passed around, patrons reached for their wallets, not avoided eye contact.
