the lost prince of Yacht Rock..." - In 1978 he was music’s next big thing. Then his album bombed, he began a long slide into obscurity, and a bizarre fraud sent him to prison. Will Dane Donohue finally get his encore?

Picture yourself in 1978, behind the thin plastic steering wheel of your brand-new Chevy Nova, stuck in traffic on the 10 freeway. There’s smog obscuring the L.A. skyline and the smell of exhaust in the air. Over the crackle of the AM radio, the newsreader says something about Iran, a bright-voiced chorus promises that Coke adds life! and a DJ reassures you that you are, indeed, listening to KHJ. You reach for the cigarette lighter as the music starts — a few minor piano chords over soft, driving drums. It’s a mellow groove. An electric keyboard joins in, then a guitar, followed by a sweet, double-tracked tenor voice telling an enigmatic tale. Is it Toto? Jackson Browne? Steely Dan? It sounds kind of like everything else on the radio, but also like nothing you’ve ever heard before.


In a city of mirages, you never know who to trust
This isn’t fantasy, this is us


There’s a frantic collision of vibraphone and electric guitar, and the DJ finally cuts in to put a name to the tenor: “That was Dane Donohue with ‘Casablanca,’his debut from Columbia Records. It’s half past eight — time to check the traffic.” You make a mental note: Dane Donohue. You expect to hear that name again. Donohue himself is just a few miles away in his room at the Beverly Hills Hotel, sleeping off a night out on Santa Monica Boulevard after another interview with another radio station that promised to play his album. He’s been riding high the past few months, and who wouldn’t be after recording a self-titled album jam-packed with the most talented, in-demand musicians in the world? Stevie Nicks and Don Henley sang backup, for chrissakes! His managers broke Aerosmith into the big time, and the very same producers who put together his album turned the Eagles and Boston into megastars. Now, they were going to do the same thing with Dane Donohue — a kid from Mansfield, Ohio, who never had to dream about his big break because he always knew it was coming.


yachtrock-01-484x640.jpg



But after 1978, unless you lived in Mansfield, you wouldn’t hear anything else from Donohue himself. How could such a talented musician and songwriter with the backing of the entire music industry slip through the cracks? To find out, I figured I’d ask him directly. It was easy to find his address online:

Daryl Dane Donohue
Inmate #61201-060
Federal Correctional Institution
PO Box 1000,
Morgantown, WV

yachtrock-02-501x640.jpg

yachtrock-03-546x640.jpg

yachtrock-05-1320x990.jpg


yachtrock-06-1320x943.jpg



https://narratively.com/the-lost-prince-of-yacht-rock/