Ethan Daniel Davidson: Detroit Ordained

Calling Ethan Daniel Davidson “Americana” is a bit of a misnomer.

The pair of incredible albums the Detroit-based artist released in 2025, Cordelia and its recent counterpart Lear, transcends the genre as Davidson paints with such textures as twangy alt-country (the Duane Betts-assisted “Not Breaking Hearts”), bluesy soul (“Waiting for Me”)  and even Television-esque guitar rock via Alvin Youngblood Hart’s sinewy solo on “How Can One Keep Warm?”

Co-produced by Luther Dickinson and David Katznelson, Lear — in particular — says so much more with less at eight songs in the spirit of Neil Young’s On the Beach and Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run (though sounding more like the former than the latter).

Bolstered by a killer studio band consisting of bassist and Emmylou Harris collaborator Byron House, drummer Marco Giovino (Robert Plant, John Cale) and pedal steel legend Rayfield “Ray Ray” Holloman, Lear finds the newly ordained rabbi delivering a 14th album as strong as anything he’s done prior — showcasing the diversity of his rock ‘n’ roll heart and deep knowledge of his surroundings.

“When I look at the world and think about how we’d like to change things about it, we lack the political will to actually do anything about it,” he reflects. “As a global society, we just don’t have it. The way our information universe exists now, the world has somehow flattened out for all of us. We paint nuanced issues with broad brushes, but I want to tell people that the world isn’t really that way.”

Rock & Roll Globe caught up with Davidson during the holidays to speak with him about Shakespeare, how his ordination informs his songwriting and more.

Lear is out now on Blue Arrow Records.

 

What was it about King Lear that informed your choice for naming the album Lear?

I think Cordelia was a character from Shakespeare that I always identified with. My father — who was not King Lear, nothing like King Lear — nonetheless had a lot of hangers-on around him at the end of his life. People who didn’t have his best interests in mind, nor mine. I was kind of this kid who was on the road and not really caring about anything other than my father’s love, which it felt like I had, but I wasn’t there for much of anything. I felt like Cordelia in that way, and these others were so many Gonerils and Regans, just after whatever scraps fell off his table. So I identified with her.

In terms of Lear, I was always a literature student in college and a Shakespeare fan, and I’ve gone to see King Lear all over the world. I once saw it in a program that said, “Every old man becomes King Lear,” and I thought, is that really the fate for all of us? Do we have to become narcissistic old men? I hope not. I hope that I don’t need people to express their fealty to me if I live that long. I called it Lear as a cautionary tale — to myself and to you. Let’s not become narcissists. There are already too many of those in the world.

Congratulations on your ordination. How has your journey to become a rabbi inspired your songwriting? What kind of perspective has it given you?

There have always been philosophical, and particularly Jewish philosophical themes in the lyrics. It occupies the same space as my psychotherapy process. The music has never been Jewish, so to speak, but I definitely mine Jewish texts and other literature for themes in the lyrics. It’s all helping me understand myself better, and that’s the only reason I’m really doing any of it at all — in hopes of communicating and making space for others to find that within themselves.

 

Please tell me more about this great band you put together for Lear.

Luther put the band together. I didn’t know any of the guys beforehand. I wanted to go and play with people I had never met before. It had been a while since I’d done that, and it’s good for me to do that every once in a while — to start over with brand new people so I don’t get too comfortable.

I did have a record of sacred steel music with Ray Ray on it, and I’d heard some of Alvin Youngblood Hart’s music over the years, and Jimbo Mathus with the Squirrel Nut Zippers.

I’m always interested in who the drummer is going to be. When Luther put Marco’s name out there, I spent a lot of time watching him on YouTube. I noticed he had a nice feel, and I knew that would be the standout in our energy working together.

 

How are Lear and Cordelia further intertwined?

Lear emerged from the same sessions that birthed Cordelia, in a similar fashion to alt-country legends Lambchop’s 2004 sister albums Aw C’mon and You C’Mon. My songs have become more autobiographical. I’m recounting my own experiences with heartbreak and being on the road.

When I was younger, I was hitchhiking around — throwing everything I had off the back of a train and trying to escape whatever life I had as a younger person. I had some bad experiences in different towns, and my heart has been broken in a thousand different ways. I don’t even see through the same eyes anymore.

Also, if you dig deep, you’ll catch a few references to the play throughout both records.

 

What is it about the eight-song album format that worked for Lear? The songs were longer this time.

I’ve gone back to longer songs, and especially with this band I wanted to give them the opportunity to stretch out. It just felt right.

Why did you choose to use negative imagery of the Cordelia cover photo for Lear?

To further tie the two albums together. I wanted to use the same image. At first we flipped it as a mirror image. I guess I could have tried turning it upside down, but then I supposed people would have trouble getting it out of the sleeve. In the end, I thought the negative version worked best.

It was a photo I shot in a motel parking lot in the Diné (Navajo) Nation. I’ve been there a handful of times over the past 30 years. Anytime I go there, there are wild horses in the parking lot. One of them kicked out the window of a hotel room.

 

Is there anything happening in modern music that’s inspiring you creatively?

I listen to a lot of different kinds of music. I was recently in Baja California, and I asked some locals for music recommendations and got names of artists I’d never heard of. I don’t know if they’ll influence me in any particular way, but they’ve been great. Peso Pluma. Carín León. I also remembered a band I’d heard ages ago — Café Tacvba — after they had mentioned them. They’re an experimental punk band from Mexico City.