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Dave Matthews Biography:
The Dave Matthews Band came together in Charlottesville, Virginia, in early 1991, when vocalist/guitarist Dave Matthews determined to place some songs he had written on tape. Instead of just recording himself with a guitar, he chose to bring in some instrumental help to give his musical ideas more depth. Dave found help in drummer Carter Beauford and saxophonist LeRoi Moore, who were together accomplished jazz musicians in the local Charlottesville music scene. Based on the suggestion of notable local jazz guru John D’earth, 16-year-old musical prodigy Stefan Lessard came on board to play bass. Finishing the band was keyboard player Peter Griesar, who left the band after a couple of years, as well as the gifted and naturally trained violinist, Boyd Tinsley.
The first official gig for the newly envisioned Dave Matthews Band was May 11, 1991, at a private rooftop party in Charlottesville. Its first community show was at the city’s 1991 Earth Day Festival. Neighboring weekly gigs quickly followed, and within a small time, word of the band’s infectious new sound multiplied like a wildfire all through the state. Clubs started to fill up, tours began to cover more areas, and the fan base grew at an unbelievable rate.
On November 9, 1993, The Dave Matthews Band released its first album, Remember Two Things, on its Bama Rags label. The album was recorded live at The Muse Music Club on Nantucket Island, in August of 1993. The album debuted on College charts as the highest self-governing entrance, and went on to be certified gold by the RIAA, an important achievement for an independent album. In the meantime, the band kept touring and its fan base unrelenting continued to rise. By permitting fans to tape shows for their personal use, The Dave Matthews Band created an extremely interactive community that carries on in spirit today.
In the first part of 1994, Dave Matthews Band recorded its RCA debut, Under The Table and Dreaming. Immediately before the album's release on September 27, 1994, Dave Matthews Band hit the road for their first official national tour. The tour lasted well above a year and included sold out theater dates across the country, a trip to Europe, and two summers playing on the key stage of HORDE. By the fall of 1995, when the band returned to the studio to record its next album, Under The Table and Dreaming had been certified four times platinum by the RIAA.
Dave Matthews Band's second album for RCA, Crash was released on April 30, 1996, and debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart. The band sustained with a firm schedule of touring all through 1997, headlining sold-out amphitheater dates across North America.
The Dave Matthews Band, although prominent to the level of national pop stardom, continued to do things exactly as it had from day one.
On October 28, 1997, Bama Rags/RCA label released an official double-disc live Dave Matthews Band album, entitled Live at Red Rocks 8-15-95. With no marketing or help, Live at Red Rocks debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 chart and was instantly certified platinum. The album gave fans with a high-quality and sensibly priced option to the over-priced, ill-produced, and illegal live Dave Matthews Band CDs that were beginning to overflow the bootleg black-market. The overpowering achievement of Live at Red Rocks, combined with the band's incredible touring achievements, proved that Dave Matthews Band had grown from a grass roots incident to one of the hottest bands in America.
On April 28, 1998, RCA released Dave Matthews Band's third studio album, Before These Crowded Streets. The significantly highly praised recording debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart; it was the band's strongest debut to date.
The Dave Matthews Band spent the following year and a half on the road, selling out stadiums, arenas, and amphitheaters across the nation.
On January 19, 1999, Bama Rags/RCA released Live at Luther College: An Acoustic Performance by Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds. Tim Reynolds was a guest guitarist on every one of the Dave Matthews Band albums, and toured with the band as a visitor musician. Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds toured as an acoustic pair during the winters of '96, '97, and '99. The second in a series of live Dave Matthews Band-related releases, Live at Luther College debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart and has since been certified platinum by the RIAA .
As with Live at Red Rocks, the victory of this second live album was based only on word-of-mouth bases.
The third part in this ongoing live album series, Listener Supported, was released by Bama Rags/RCA on November 23, 1999. The album was recorded live at New Jersey's Continental Airlines Arena in September 1999, and a video of the concert, also titled Listener Supported, was released at the same time. The double-disc album was rapidly certified double-platinum, and the video has sold over a million copies.
The Dave Matthews Band spent a great deal of 2000 on tour, finishing as the top-grossing touring band in the U.S. In the fall, Dave Matthews joined renowned producer Glen Ballard in Los Angeles to fine-tune song provisions for a new album, and the pair wound up co-writing 12 new songs in a matter of days. From this outburst of creative chemistry came the band's new album, Everyday, released February 27, 2001. Matthews's plays electric guitar for the first time, and Ballard helped the band center and tighten their arrangements, ensuing in their strongest and most finely-crafted album yet.
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