Donavon Frankenreiter

Over the course of the past half-decade, the California-bred Frankenreiter established himself as one of the more original voices on the acoustic-rock scene. Singer, songwriter, surfer Donavon Frankenreiter knows his way around a wave as well as he does a fret-board. Once upon a time, mentioning surfing and music in the same sentence conjured up sepia-toned images of the early’’60s. But thanks to artists like Donavon Frankenreiter, those images have been updated radically to focus as much on musical adventure as on the spreading of good vibes.“I listen to so much music, and I pretty much feel comfortable singing all of it, so I didn’t want to come across as a guy who does nothing else but sit on a beach with an acoustic guitar, playing around a fire,” says Frankenreiter. “The funky stuff, especially, is fun to play -- it really lets me tap into a different part of my personality.” Frankenreiter's first album was released under long-time pal Jack Johnson's label Brushfire Recordings. Before 2002 when Frankenreiter decided to expand his hobby of making music into something larger, he and Johnson played casually together for years.When recording "Move By Yourself," Frankenreiter and band mates Matt Grundy (bass), Eric Brigmond (Keyboards) and Craig Barnette (drums) used an old-fashioned recording process, getting back to the roots of original surfer music as well as adding texture to the album. “We recorded at a studio in St. Augustine, and this guy, Jim DiVito, had tons of really old equipment, which was terrific,” recalls Donavon. “He had two inch tape, no click tracks and we had to do things the way stuff had been done before all the modern studio technology was invented. Just seeing the tape roll was fun. That had a lot to do with the way the music sounds.”Now, Frankenreiter's most recently released album "Pass It Around," is taking him on-board the tour bus to Portland, ME. Without a doubt, Frankenreiter's up-lifting acoustic melodies combined with his deft, bluesy fretwork, takes you to a place that just feels so good.