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    [photo credit: Phil Mansfield]
  
Mark Donato lived his first 18 years in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, graduated to Pittsburgh, saved $1000 and moved to New York City, where he inherited a band.

He spent the late 1980s, the '90s and the early '00s a grateful prisoner of New York's Downtown music scene. Then he moved to a rural Upstate community, where he can be found in his garage, playing songs.

He was in a band called Canoeful of Strangers and also one called Spondee, which put out a record on the fabled Hello Recording Club label, before it went the way of all fabled labels.

He drummed, sang and played harmonica for John Linnell of They Might Be Giants; the legendary country orchestra Flat Old World; Rosine; the Oswalds; Amy Allison and the Maudlins and others you might have heard of.

Lately he's been playing music in the general vicinity of Woodstock, NY, famous for its dreadlocks and maple syrup.

His first three full-length CDs: Mark Donato Sings 'I'm Flapping' and other Favorites, The Old Joy, I Haven't Wasted All this Time Alone, were released on the venerated Rag and Bone Shop label. His last two, A History of the Boys and Girls and the brand new Trespassing for Beginners, have been released by Lorenzo and Betty Music, a label run by cats, one dead and one living.