Daugherty has been described by The Times (London) as "a master icon maker" with a "maverick imagination, fearless structural sense and meticulous ear.

[6] Music was a significant activity in the Daugherty family, especially during the holidays when relatives would participate in jam sessions of popular songs like "Misty" and "Sentimental Journey".

They often took long summer road trips down two-lane highways to tourist locations, including Mount Rushmore, Niagara Falls and Miami Beach.

[7] In 1964, the entire Daugherty family took a two-week vacation to London where The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix were at the height of their fame and Carnaby Street was the cutting edge of pop culture and fashion – this was in the heart of the Swinging Sixties.

[6] This band performed a variety of Motown charts and music by James Brown, Blood Sweat & Tears, and Sly and the Family Stone.

With the help of his father, who drove the band across the state, The Soul Company became a locally popular group that performed at high school proms, dances, and other events.

[6] Daugherty interviewed jazz artists who performed in Iowa, including Buddy Rich, Stan Kenton, George Shearing, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and he wrote articles on their music for the high school newspaper.

During the summers of 1972–77, Daugherty played Hammond organ at county fairs across the Midwest for various popular music stars such as Bobby Vinton, Boots Randolph, Pee Wee King, and members of The Lawrence Welk Show.

[6] It was after hearing the Dallas Symphony Orchestra perform the Piano Concerto by Samuel Barber that Daugherty decided to devote his full energies into composing music for the concert stage.

[6] To earn money for his studies, Daugherty was employed as an usher at Carnegie Hall and a rehearsal pianist for dance classes directed by the New York City Ballet dancer Jacques d'Amboise.

[12] Daugherty frequently attended "uptown" and "downtown" new music concerts in New York City; this is where he became acquainted with composers such as Milton Babbitt, Morton Feldman, and Pierre Boulez.

Daugherty studied with Druckman and other Pulitzer Prize winning composers at Yale, including Bernard Rands and Roger Reynolds.

[13] At Yale, Daugherty wrote his dissertation on the relationship between the music of Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler and the writings of Goethe and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Daugherty attended lectures given by composers, including Brian Ferneyhough and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and performances by the Arditti String Quartet.

Together they formed an experimental improvisation ensemble (Markus Stockhausen on trumpet and electronics and Daugherty on synthesizers) that, over several years, performed in concert halls and clubs across Europe.

[6] In the fall of 1982, Daugherty was invited by composer György Ligeti to study composition with him at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg.

[15] During the following two years (1983–84), Daugherty continued to study with Ligeti while employed as a solo jazz pianist in night clubs in Cambridge, England and Amsterdam.

[19] At the University of Michigan, Daugherty mentored many young composers,[10] including Clarice Assad, Derek Bermel, Gabriela Lena Frank, Kristin Kuster, David T. Little, Shuying Li, Joel Puckett, Andrea Reinkemeyer, Arlene Sierra, D. J. Sparr and Roger Zare.

[4] He has also composed new works, including Niagara Falls (1997) and Bells for Stokowski (2002), for the University of Michigan Symphony Band and its two most recent conductors, H. Robert Reynolds and Michael Haithcock.

[4] In 2001, Daugherty was invited to present his music with performances by the United States Air Force Band at the Midwest Clinic "The Midnight Special" in Chicago.

Daugherty has participated in the Ravinia Festival Community Outreach program which is designed to promote and encourage new music by student ensembles in the Chicago Public Schools.

Daugherty received several Grammy awards in the category of Best Contemporary Classical Composition for the Nashville Symphony recordings of Deus ex Machina [26] and Tales of Hemingway for cello and orchestra.