Rod MacDonald

Rod MacDonald is fondly remembered from his Greenwich Village days in the 1980s, and has now decided that Florida is the place to be. Four of his recent CDs were top ten finishers in national folk charts, with many of his songs covered by notable talents, including Garnet Rogers, Shawn Colvin, Four Bitchin' Babes, Jonathan Edwards, Joe Jencks, and Dave Van Ronk. Currently playing at festivals, clubs, and concerts across America, in Australia, and Europe, he is recognized worldwide as a novelist, an educator, and a singer-songwriter. 

Born in Connecticut, he was educated in Virginia and at the Columbia School of Law, and then chose to become a folk singer. Back in the 1980s, when he had 21 songs in the Smithsonian Fast Folk Collection, MacDonald was instrumental in the folk festival revival in Greenwich Village clubs. Performing at Folk City, Speakeasy, the "Songwriters Exchange" at the Cornelia Street Cafe, and at The Bottom Line, his popular tunes gained attention throughout the city.

MacDonald credits his songwriting influences to Richard Fariña, Bob Dylan, and Phil Ochs, pulling together a penchant to take chances and get political. Writing three novels and 14 music albums in four decades, he shows his devotion to his trade, and has changed with the times. During the pandemic and the performers' shutdown, he created an hour-and-a-half concert, which he streamed on Facebook every Sunday evening—before podcasts were a common thing. He also restarted the Greenwich Village Folk Festival in the form of a series published online each month, and released a CD of his early unpublished work, entitled Boulevard. Beloved by his adopted community of Palm Beach, he was named "One of Ten Magnificent Musicians Of Palm Beach County" by the Palm Beach Post; he is also recognized as a Distinguished Faculty Member of Florida Atlantic University.