JAMESTOWN — Danny Shafer opens up through music. The Americana singer-songwriter pours his heart into every song he writes and performs, hoping to make honest connections with his listeners.
“I don’t have to hide anything when I’m on stage,” he says. “There’s no spot in my personality that I can’t show.”
Since moving to Boulder in 1990, the Chicago native has brought his open-hearted style to venues across the Front Range, booking for and performing in places like the Caribou Room and Jamestown Mercantile.
Shafer is excited to come back to the Mercantile on December 4, one of the many reminders of the connections he’s built in the state.
“There’s no place like it,” he says. “I can walk in there and see old, old, old friends.”
The time-tested musician has toured and performed for more than a quarter of a century, sometimes clocking over 300 shows a year. Shafer has written hundreds of songs during that time, performing solo and with alt-country lineups including The Unknown Americans and The Red Glory Ramblers.
“Writing songs always seemed like what a guitar was for,” he says. “I had a moment where I wanted to be the best guitar player in the world, but that faded pretty quickly because I knew I was gonna spend my time with words and melody.”
Shafer takes inspiration from old-school country and honky-tonk, influenced by the styles of Willie Nelson and Neil Young. He has also adopted the heartland rock tendencies of storytellers like Bruce Springsteen and Warren Zevon.
Hard rock flows through Shafer’s veins, too, with artists such as UFO and Ronnie James Dio providing the soundtrack to his childhood. Once, at the age of 13, he snuck out of church to buy a copy of AC/DC’s Back in Black at Chicago’s Rolling Stones Records Store.
However, it’s the Front Range roots music community where Shafer has built his home. “The Colorado music scene is very open, and it’s also very changing,” the Gold Hill resident says. “The people I know that have stuck around, they’re like cousins or brothers and sisters.”
Ultimately, Shafer hopes listeners resonate with the raw, emotional core of his music. The idea, he says, is to give back to audiences and the art form on which he’s built his career.
“It’s given me so much, and it’s given me more than I can ask for,” he says. “It’s given me a job, it’s given me a life, it’s given me friends, it’s given me family.”
Danny Shafer will be performing at the Jamestown Mercantile, located at 108 Main Street in Jamestown, on Thursday, December 4, 2025, starting at 7 p.m.
