Preview
Fingerstyle guitarist Don Conoscenti plays the Wild Ground Arts and Learning Center, 702 Brooks St., on Sunday, July 1, at 8 p.m. Tickets will be sold at the door for $10, $8 for members of the Missoula Folklore Society.
Don Conoscenti lives on the road, collecting stories from both sides of the tracks, the rich and famous, the people of the street.
He weaves those stories into a musical tapestry that grows larger with each record, as Conoscenti expands the multi-instrumental landscape beyond acoustic guitar.
Yes, it's true, Conoscenti is another "guy with an acoustic guitar" who are now a dime a dozen on the folk circuit. Fortunately, Conoscenti has more working for him. For one thing, he's not limited to guitar.
On his newest record, he plays lap steel, piano, bass, banjo, didgerdoo, flute and a host of guitars. Conoscenti's distinctive tenor - he sounds like a folkie Michael Stipe without the mannered delivery - tops the instruments, accented by harmonies from Ellis Paul. The music is probably best defined as new age folk, but Conoscenti incorporates elements of blues and jazz and what he calls "trance" music.
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Conoscenti, who lives in Colorado when he's not touring, has earned raves from the acoustic music press. Acoustic Guitar magazine said, "With a band-in-a-box fingerpicking style and a soulful, angelic tenor voice, Conoscenti creates engaging, thoughtful songs that sit up and beg to be noticed."
Said Performing Songwriter: "Lines that soar like an arrow in flight … Drifters, dreamers and the art of letting … Conoscenti is an engine firing on all pistons."
Conoscenti, who regularly uses guest vocalists like David Wilcox and Pierce Pettis on his records, has fans in the biz, as well.
"He's one of these guitarists who could play a hundred notes to the bar but just plays the right ones instead," said renowned folkie Tom Paxton. "It's called music."
Conoscenti has been a finalist for the National Academy of Songwriters acoustic artist award, and has won the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest songwriting competition.