Donavon Frankenreiter at the Raccoon Motel -- March 22.
Sunday, March 22, 7 p.m.
Raccoon Motel, 315 East Second Street, Davenport IA
Touring in support of his September release Get Outta Your Mind, and known by many as a playable character in the video game Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer, surf-rock singer/songwriter Donavon Frankenreiter headlines a March 22 engagement at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, AllMusic raving that the artist "has a good-natured stoned drawl of a voice that delivers his light and breezy lyrics perfectly and with slacker soul."
As also stated at AllMusic.com, "Before launching a solo career as the protégé of Jack Johnson, Donavon Frankenreiter began his professional life as a surfer. Born in Southern California on December 10, 1972, he landed a sponsorship with Billabong as a young teenager and moved to Hawaii when he was 14. There, he rented a home from the parents of Jack Johnson, a fellow surfer with an untapped musical talent. The two became fast friends, learning guitar together and hanging out between trips to the beach. Music was always a hobby for Frankenreiter, who began playing guitar in a local rock band called Sunchild during his late teens, but it wasn't until 2002 that he grew confident enough to try a solo career. Meanwhile, Johnson's musical career had taken a meteoric leap, and he was starting his own Brushfire Records label. Frankenreiter reached out to his old friend, who released Frankenreiter's self-titled debut in May 2004. Johnson also made a guest appearance on the record, along with G. Love and Koool G Murder of the Eels.
"For his next record, Frankenreiter broke from his mentor's label and partnered up with Lost Highway, which released 2006's Move by Yourself. An EP full of cover songs, Recycled Recipes, appeared in 2007, with the polished full-length Pass It Around following a year later. Around this time, Frankenreiter relocated to Kauai and began gravitating toward Hawaiian instruments like slack key guitar, lap steel, and ukulele. All three figured prominently on his next album, Revisited, essentially a reinterpreted version of his 2004 debut with a tropical island feel. Revisited was released in 2010, as were a second volume of the Recycled Recipes series and a fourth album of original material, Glow." That latter recording was produced by Mark Wahlberg, and since then, Frankenreiter has released a quartet of additional albums with 2012's Start Livin', 2013's The Heart, 2019's Revisited 2, and last fall's Get Outta Your Mind.
Donavon Frankenreiter performs his Davenport engagement on March 22 with an additional set by Iris & the Shade, admission to the 7 p.m. concert is $39.67, and more information and tickets are available by visiting TheRaccoonMotel.com.
