His songs have been covered by Dave Van Ronk, Shawn Colvin, Four Bitchin' Babes, Jonathan Edwards, Garnet Rogers, Joe Jencks, and others.

His 1985 recording "White Buffalo" is dedicated to Lakota Sioux ceremonial chief and healer Frank Fools Crow, whom he visited in 1981 and 1985, and who appears with MacDonald in the cover photograph.

After graduating from the Cheshire Academy in 1966, he attended the University of Virginia, where he was managing editor of the student newspaper The Cavalier Daily and toured statewide with the five-piece folk group The Lovin' Sound.

In 1972, while at Officer's Training School in Newport, RI, he began working as a solo singer-guitarist at a waterfront bar, The Black Pearl, on a nightly basis.

He has also recorded 3 cds as lead singer of Big Brass Bed, a Palm Beach County rock and roll band, and appears on numerous compilations of Florida and folk artists.

MacDonald was a regular contributor to the Fast Folk Musical Magazine, publishing 21 songs and interviewing other artists, and appeared in its annual concerts.

Later That Night was named "Best Local Cd of 2014" by The Palm Beach Post[3] and reached the top ten in national roots and folk music charts.

In 2017 Blue Flute Music released Rod MacDonald & Mark Dann: Live At Music-Star, a concert DVD recorded in Norderstedt, Germany in April 2016.

Writing in Goldmine, Lee Zimmerman called it "flush with astute observations and commentary on the current stage of politics and populism at a time when courtesy and common sense seem to have gone wholly astray.

During the 2020-21 pandemic and shutdown, he performed a ninety-minute concert each Sunday evening on Facebook, restarted the Greenwich Village Folk Festival as a monthly online series, and released Boulevard, a cd of "my first songs, the first original words and music I wrote and sang for friends, on the street, and in clubs and coffeehouses.

"[13] He also continued his lecture series Music Americana at Florida Atlantic University's Osher/Lifelong Learning program, and has since released Rants And Romance and resumed live performing.