Dave Matthews Band

506 Words3 Pages
Composer Review Amanda Settlemire Dave Matthews lived in several different places while as he came up through life. Some of those places included South Africa , England , New York City, and Virginia. Dave Matthews is originally from South Africa. He started playing the guitar when he was nine and never put it down. Dave's main musical back ground is very influenced by South African culture and rhythms. He never had any real type of a musical plan. The basis of his music comes from all the many different places in which he lived and cultures which he experienced. Dave says it gave him a certain "openness". While Dave was in Virginia, he got a job as a bartender at a local bar called Miller's. He started to sing a lot of his own songs that he had written at Miller's and later branched out into local and abroad music scene. He then began to meet the members of current Dave Matthews Band one by one and hand picked his members. Dave has said his main goal was to surround himself and his fans with the best musicians possible that he could find. He feels like he did just that Dave claims. Apartheid (discrimination against Blacks) was greatly prevalent in South Africa in the time Dave Matthews was there. Dave deeply disagreed with this. Apartheid was a large part of Dave's society and culture while growing up unfortunately, so lots of those same experiences, feelings, and emotions with apartheid are pronounced in some of his hit songs such as "Cry Freedom". Throughout many of Dave's songs, there is a theme of self regret, death, pain, loss, and reservation because of it, although it is portrayed poetically through the lyrics. The state of culture and society of South Africa and the violence that occurred there influenced Dave to play into those themes lyrically and musically. Dave lost his sister January the first in 1994 to
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