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Dan was born on the south side of Chicago Jan. 18th 1955. He grew up there and elsewhere in the Chicago land area. His early influences came via the Top 40 radio. In Chicago WLS and WCFL (AM radio) ruled and rocked. Dan was blessed to be alive and aware during the 60’s when radio played music from artists who leaned heavily on the songwriting craft, good singing and good arrangements. Later on bands with improv skills became prominent and so radio changed from AM to FM as the preeminent source. Dan's musical tastes and leanings were heavily informed by these attitudes. In summary of the influence section, Dan would say that "jamming may help one develop a vocabulary on one’s axe but, the song gives the strings of memory something to play".

Dan learned to write and play by doing it, on the job training if you will. He did this in the honky tonks, bars, dance halls and ball rooms of Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska and God knows where else. In 1991, he signed on to play lead electric and acoustic for Capitol recording artist Billy Dean (5 #1 and 11 top ten hits) and for the next 4 years toured and performed on the Grand Ole Opry, The Jay Leno show, Austin City Limits and a lot of state and county fair main stages. Dan also got to know and hang with some of the best guitar players, songwriters and singers in the world. Nashville is a good place to learn how good you are and how good you can be.

Dan now lives in Sioux Falls, SD with his wife where he is fortunate enough to be able to perform and teach for his daily bread. He has a guitar in his hand every day which suits him just fine. In 2006, he released independently, his first record “Long Stone’s Throw”, which is a collection of blues songs he had in his song bag for a while.  Life is good as long as you do what you love.

Genre:  Blues

Dan Mahar