He started his musical career in middle school playing drums, before receiving a guitar as a gift from a cousin for his 8th grade graduation.

[5] Following his 1999 performance at the Kennedy Center, the Library of Congress added a collection of Conoscenti's work to their folk revivalist archives.

[2] Conoscenti began to experiment with psychedelics, and spent many hours in the meditation hall of the Naropa Institute in Boulder during the summer that Ram Dass was doing a residency there.

Don's spiritual training continued in a San Jose barrio where he fasted, meditated, and widened his cultural horizons.

In 1975 Conoscenti returned to Chicago where he started to play hootenannies at the Earl of Old Town, and at Steve Goodman's folk club Somebody Else's Troubles.

When The Freight Room closed in 1992, Conoscenti, Wilcox, and most of Atlanta's other notable musicians like The Indigo Girls, Shawn Mullins, Kristian Bush, and others moved to Eddie's Attic.

During that time he released Boxes of Bones, My Brilliant Masterpiece, One for the Road, Mysterious Light, Paradox of Grace, Extremely Live at Eddie's Attic, and Turn Here.

Don can be blistering away on guitar, stretching his vocal range to its limits and interspersing wild wails and growls, and yet the song still comes across as comforting.

"[13]In her review of Extremely Live at Eddie's Attic, Ellen Rawson said: "Listening to the album, it's sometimes hard to believe that there is only one guitarist creating all of that sound, whether he's on a 6-string, 12-string or steel guitar.

But the following year he settled in Taos, New Mexico,[18] where he continues to study jazz as he also explores the blues, Americana, and rock as a member of several bands.

At a concert held in Okemah, Oklahoma's Crystal Theater, Conoscenti performed at a "10-year jam" benefit show along with Bob Childers, Jimmy LaFave, Joel Rafael, Ellis Paul, the Red Dirt Rangers, and Terry "Buffalo" Ware.

[19] In her review of the 2011 Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, Jela Webb said that Conoscenti's set "with Patrick Turnmire on percussion, Dan Daily on saxophone and Terry "Buffalo" Ware, on guitar, was a joy to behold.

"[6] In the fall of 2013, Conoscenti joined the band of SONiA and disappear fear for a 54-city tour in the U.S. and Canada that included stops on the west coast in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Vancouver and Los Angeles and in the east in New York City and Boston.

Conoscenti was also a featured guitarist on disappear fear's 2013 release Broken Film recorded in Nashville by Mike Poole in December 2012.