In 1987, Dave Matthews took a job as a bartender at Miller’s, a bar in Charlottesville, Virginia, marking the first step in the formation of the Dave Matthews Band. Many local musicians played regularly at the bar, and Dave began to admire them from afar. One of these musicians, a saxophonist named LeRoi Moore, spent many nights sitting at the bar opposite Dave, without ever knowing the bartender who served him was himself a musician; Dave kept his talent well-hidden from his Charlottesville friends.

However, as time passed, Dave began to come out of his shell, and revealed to several of his Miller’s friends that he not only played guitar, but wrote music as well. He played with guitarist Tim Reynolds, as well as local music teacher and jazz musician John D’Earth, both of whom recognised true talent in him and encouraged him to continue writing. By late 1990, Dave had built up enough courage to ask some of the musicians he had admired for so long to form a band with him, and make a tape. He began with LeRoi Moore, giving him a tape with a sample of his music. He did the same with Carter Beauford, a drummer and Miller’s regular who had played for many years alongside LeRoi in gigs and jam sessions. Both expressed an interest in his music. For a bass player, Dave turned to John D’Earth, who recommended one of his students, Stefan Lessard, a 16-year-old musical prodigy. Peter Griesar joined as the band’s keyboard player, but would leave the band after a couple of years. Later, as the band was recording their tape, violinist Boyd Tinsley was asked to play for one of the songs, and soon joined up as the final member of the band.

By early 1991, the Dave Matthews Band was formed, and got their first official gig on May 11, 1991, at a private party. Their first public show was at Charlottesville’s 1991 Earth Day Festival. The band was so well-received that many gigs soon followed, including two weekly shows at Trax, a local nightclub. The band’s following was enormous, and Coran Capshaw, the nightclub’s owner, took notice. He signed on as their band manager, and booked them at every paying gig he could find, until the band was performing, Dave recalls, “three or four hours a night, five or six nights a week.” The band’s name, Dave Matthews says, was simply the result of lack of creativity. At the band’s early performances, Boyd would do most of the talking, and at one performance is said to have said, “We don’t have a name, but we’re really Dave Matthews’ band.” The name stuck.

After building a massive following, the band finally decided it was time to release an album. On November 9, 1993, Remember Two Things was released on the band’s independent label, Bama Rags. The album was certified gold by the RIAA. The following year, DMB recorded its RCA debut, Under the Table and Dreaming. It was released September 27, 1994, and achieved number eleven on the Billboard 200 chart. The music video for the band’s first major hit, “What Would You Say,” was released more than two months after the album’s release, to allow fans to fall in love with the band and not the single. Not that they wouldn’t have fallen in love anyway; DMB’s first official tour sold out theatres across the US.

Their second album, Crash, released April 30, 1996, debuted at number two on the Billboard 200. The Dave Matthews Band was now one of the highest-selling shows in North America, and when their first live album, Live at Red Rocks, was released, it debuted at number three and was instantly certified platinum without ever having been promoted or marketed.

On April 28, 1998, DMB released their third studio album, Before These Crowded Streets, marking the only time a Dave Matthews Band album has ever debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart. In 1999, the band released two more live albums: Live at Luther College, taken from one of Dave Matthews’ and Tim Reynold’s many acoustic tours, and Listener Supported, recorded in September, 1999, at the Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey. A video, and later a DVD of Listener Supported were also released, selling over a million copies.

On June 19, 2000, Dave Matthews Band began a tour that was set to promote their new album, tentatively called “The Summer So Far.” However, the album was delayed several times and eventually scratched; the band had fallen into a slump and felt their new recordings had little of the energy characteristic of their previous albums and live performances. What they needed was a change, and they found that in Glen Ballard, who had produced albums for such artists as Alanis Morissette and Aerosmith. DMB parted with Steve Lillywhite, who had produced all of their previous studio records, assuring fans that there were no hard feelings between Lillywhite and the band. Dave teamed up with Ballard to write twelve new songs within a few days, and these new songs formed the Dave Matthews Band’s fourth studio album, Everyday, released February 27, 2001. Everyday was a large departure from the raw acoustic sound that Dave Matthews Band was known for, but the album was still very successful, reaching triple platinum.

However, while the songs of Everyday were gaining commercial success, the songs recorded with Steve Lillywhite the previous year for their ill-fated album were gaining even larger success on music downloading programs; the recordings had been leaked onto the internet without the band’s consent. Fans now had access to these scratched recordings, which they entitled the “Lillywhite Sessions.” The Dave Matthews Band’s reaction to this incident was bittersweet; while flattered that their fans liked their music enough to do such a thing, they were highly disappointed that the music was being released unfinished.

Perhaps in part because of this incident, DMB set out to finish the songs from the “Lillywhite Sessions,” and release them in a way that satisfied them. In 2002, after releasing yet another live album, Live in Chicago, they returned to Plant Studios in Sausalito, California, where they had recorded Before These Crowded Streets, to record many of the same songs they had put aside before. The result was Busted Stuff, the band’s fifth studio album, released July 16, 2002. Only two songs on the release, “Where Are You Going” and “You Never Know,” were new to this album. The rest were by now fan favourites, but with much more energy and life than the original recordings.

In 2002, after another successful tour, Dave Matthews Band released their fifth live album, Live at Folsom Field, and the following year, Boyd Tinsley released a solo album entitled True Reflections, while Dave Matthews released his first solo effort, Some Devil. The most recent DMB release is Live at The Gorge. This album comes as either three CDs, or one DVD and two CDs, and contains over three hours of live music.

With more live releases to date than studio albums, and having achieved a ranking as the highest-selling rock show in North America without ever having very frequent airplay, Dave Matthews Band has achieved their stardom in the old-fashioned way: by simply being great musicians. It’s this kind of fame that lasts, because it’s well-deserved, and after fourteen years, the band’s fame still hasn’t dwindled. And at the rate they’re going, we can be pretty certain that the Dave Matthews Band isn’t going to disappear anytime soon.