Name	Dave Matthews Band
Height
Naionality	United States
Date of Birth
Place of Birth
Famous for

The Dave Matthews Band (DMB) emblazoned the 1990s with its hybrid of jazz, folk, and world music with a distinct pop sensibility. By the end of the decade, Matthews' introspective lyrics and distinctive vocal timbre resonated through capacity stadiums across the U.S., as DMB achieved arena-rock stardom.

The son of a physicist father and an architect mother, Matthews spent his formative years in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Westchester County, New York. After being drafted by the South African military to fight in favor of an apartheid political system at age 18, Matthews retreated with his family to the U.S. for good and soon ended up in Charlottesville, Virginia. There he began writing songs on his acoustic guitar during the day and working as a bartender at Miller's, Charlottesville's premier bar for local musicians, at night. Matthews eventually began jamming with topnotch players who frequently gigged at Miller's: guru trumpeter John D'earth, fusion drummer Carter Beauford, and reeds player LeRoi Moore. By spring 1991, the Dave Matthews Band played its first concert at a rooftop party in Charlottesville with its soon-to-be permanent lineup: Matthews, Beauford, Moore, virtuosic violinist Boyd Tinsley, and bassist Stefan Lessard.

In the tradition of the Grateful Dead and Phish, the Dave Matthews Band built up a fan base by allowing fans to record and circulate tapes of the band's performances. Fan favorites like "Ants Marching" and "Tripping Billies" were revamped nightly as the band opened up ample musical space for improvisation. The band's first record, 1993's Remember Two Things, was an indie success on the college charts and eventually went gold. RCA signed Matthews and released Under the Table and Dreaming (Number 11, 1994), which yielded the hits "What Would You Say," "Ants Marching," and "Satellite." Within a year, Under the Table and Dreaming was four times platinum.

After playing on the jam-band-friendly H.O.R.D.E. summer tour with Blues Traveler and the Allman Brothers Band and headlining a few national tours, DMB recorded 1996's Crash, which debuted at Number Two on the pop albums chart. It would earn DMB a Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Perormances by a Duo or Group in 1997 for "So Much to Say." Matthews and brethren then proceeded to generate a string of live recordings. Live at Red Rocks 8.15.95 (Number Three, 1997), Live at Luther College (Number Two, 1999) (recorded on one of Matthews' acoustic-only tours with guitarist and longtime collaborator Tim Reynolds), and Listener Supported (Number 15, 1999) all document Matthews' commitment to his ever-swelling, increasingly diversified fan base. Meanwhile, 1998's studio album, Before These Crowded Streets, a series of solemn narratives about a tormented man's yearnings for his lover, debuted at Number One.

The dawning of the new millennium saw Matthews pick up an electric guitar for the first time in the studio on the uncharacteristically gritty Everyday, which was produced and cowritten by producer Glen Ballard. Everyday was actually the fifth studio disc DMB cut: they'd shelved an album recorded in 2000 with producer Steve Lillywhite, much of which made its way onto 2002's Busted Stuff. A year after that, Matthews issued Some Devil, his bow without the Band; it too won a Grammy, for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, in 2004 for the single "Gravedigger." That fall, DMB participated in the Vote for Change tour, usually headlining shows featuring Jurassic 5, Ben Harper, and My Morning Jacket, and the group launched a mail-order concert-recordings series, Live Trax. 2005 saw the release of Stand Up, DMB's seventh studio disc; it was followed in 2006 by The Best of What's Around, Vol. 1, a half-live, half-studio collection. As well, Matthews has continued to issue live albums recorded at scenic locales like Washington State's Columbia River Valley (The Gorge, 2002) and Colorado's Red Rocks (Weekend on the Rocks, 2005) as well as in urban settings like New York City's Live at Radio City Music Hall and Atlanta's Live at Piedmont Park.