The Dave Mathews
Band
David John Matthews, popularly known
as Dave Matthews, (born January 9, 1967 in Johannesburg, South
Africa) is the Grammy-award winning lead vocalist and guitarist from
Dave Matthews Band. He has also worked as a solo artist and with other
musicians, most often with Tim Reynolds. An occasional actor, he has
appeared in two feature films.
Matthews and his wife, Jennifer Ashley Harper, have twin daughters
born in 2001, Stella Busina and Grace Anne. The family splits their
time between Seattle, Washington and Charlottesville. Despite his
upbringing, Matthews identifies as agnostic.
Matthews self-identifies as a "White" immigrant American, However, he
has been classified by some with the term African-American, since he
was born and spent a large portion of his childhood in South Africa.
However, as this term is usually reserved for Black Americans, the
designation has met with dispute.
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Semantics aside, Matthews is a
legal American and identifies strongly with American culture and politics.
However, as he stated in his famous essay "My African Heart," "I go back
to South Africa at least once a year, sometimes twice, and usually for a
month...to both lose myself and gain awareness of myself."
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The Band
 The
Band was an influential Canadian-American rock and roll group of the 1960s
and 1970s.
The members of The Band first worked together as The Hawks, the backing
band of rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins from 1959 until 1963. Afterwards,
Bob Dylan recruited the quintet for his history-making 1965–1966 world
tour and they joined him on the informal recordings that became the
acclaimed Basement Tapes.
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