Ethan Daniel Davidson Recruits Duane Betts For 'Not Breaking Hearts'

10-22-2025

(MPG) Detroit singer-songwriter Ethan Daniel Davidson shared "Not Breaking Hearts," the latest single from his upcoming album Lear, a companion record to Cordelia, which was released earlier this year via Blue Arrow Records. "Not Breaking Hearts" features a lead guitar performance from Duane Betts, the son of late and legendary Allman Brothers six-stringer Dickie Betts.

Lear was also co-produced by Luther Dickinson and David Katznelson and deepens the allegorical and reflective songcraft that Davidson established on Cordelia. Out on November 14, Lear is a rich, legs-stretched companion to its counterpart where Davidson draws from his life's experiences like water from a freshly tapped well. Lear's eight songs possess a distinct ache akin to Neil Young's On the Beach. Every lyric, a new road to be explored, and Davidson, the perfect guide to the journey.

Davidson describes the shuffling glow of "Not Breaking Hearts," "My attempt at writing a classic '60s country song. The songs have gotten long on these last few albums, and I want people to know that I can also write a song that runs for only two and a half minutes," he chuckles. "Duane came in and played shortly after his father passed away," he adds. "It was such an honor to have him play on this song."

Lear, Davidson's fourteenth studio album, emerged from the same sessions that birthed Cordelia. He's accompanied by the same crackerjack team: producers Katznelson and Dickinson, bassist and Emmylou Harris collaborator Byron House, drummer Marco Giovino (Robert Plant, John Cale), and pedal steel legend Rayfield "Ray Ray" Holloman. At first blush, these tunes might appear more deceptively upbeat than the ruminations on Cordelia, but fear not-Davidson is still mining the dark corners of his own psyche to great aplomb.

There's a thematic thread that unites Shakespeare's Cordelia and Lear in which Davidson has consistently found parallels to his own life. "King Lear had a real resonance with me," he explains. "I always identified with Cordelia, because she wasn't after her father for money or anything like that-she just loved him. My adopted father was very successful, and he had sycophants who tried to drag my reputation through the mud, to try and drive a wedge in between us. Whether or not he ultimately bought into that, it's hard to say-but the situation definitely made me feel more like Cordelia."

Lear is imbued with the worldly perspective that Davidson-a newly ordained rabbi, having completed his ordination shortly after putting the final touches on the album-has long brought to his work as a thinker and storyteller. "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."

Davidson's messages ring loud and clear, marking yet another high point in a steadily expanding catalogue, which over the years has been praised by NPR Music, All Music, American Songwriter, Magnet Magazine and many more.

To celebrate Lear's release, Davidson will be playing a release show at City Vineyard in New York City on Thursday, November 6.