Singer/songwriter Danny Schmidt lived early in life in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri before moving to Austin, TX, and then Virginia. After a varied career that included working in a sawmill and living on a commune, he settled in Charlottesville. There, he was part of a musician's co-op called Acoustic Charlottesville and recorded his first album, Live at the Prism Coffeehouse. Two studio albums followed, but he became disillusioned with the music business and returned to Austin, where he intended to work in film and video production. By the time he got there, however, the company where he was to work had closed, and soon after he was diagnosed with cancer. Lacking health insurance, he released a self-produced CD, Home Recordings, in an attempt to pay his medical bills. He not only succeeded and became healthy, but also got back into music. In 2007, he won the New Folk Award at the Kerrville Folk Festival. In 2008, Waterbug Records picked up his album Little Grey Sheep for release. He was then signed to Red House Records, which released Instead the Forest Rose to Sing, described as a collection of songs "exploring the concept of money and its worth in today's world," on March 10, 2009. 2011's Man Of Many Moons was a sparse and intimate affair, while 2014's For Keeps saw him collaborating with partner and fellow Red House Records artist Carrie Elkin, with whom he was married to the same year. In 2015 Schmidt issued the mystical Owls, which was released independently through the Live Once Records imprint. ~ William Ruhlmann