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Matthews was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1967. The Matthews family consisted of four children: Dave, two sisters (Anne and Jane) and a brother (Peter). Two years later, his family immigrated to Westchester County, New York, where his physicist father went to work for IBM. The elder Matthews encouraged Dave to take piano lessons as a child before he picked up the guitar at age nine. After living in New York, his family moved to Cambridge, England in the early 1970s before returning to the States, where his father died of Hodgkin's disease, in 1977. In 1980, the family moved back to South Africa, where the young Matthews went to several schools and "got more wise about the evils of government, there and in general."[citation needed] In 1994, his sister Anne died in a domestic tragedy at her home in South Africa. The Grammy nominated album Under The Table and Dreaming is dedicated to her.
Upon his graduation from high-school, he was required to put in two years of compulsory military service, a requirement of the South African government. Coming from a devoutly Quaker family, military service was not an option,NETQUOTEVAR:1 and his mother implored University of Virginia to accept her son in honor of his father, who had once worked there in the physics department. So in 1986 Matthews relocated to Charlottesville, Virginia, where his parents had lived before he was born.
Though he also logged time back in South Africa and in Amsterdam, it was in Charlottesville that he became part of the local music community. Pursuing various interests, Matthews tried his hand at local theatre, acting in various local productions. While enthusiastic for music, and a popular bartender at a local watering hole called Miller's, Matthews was intimidated by the quality of the local talent and largely shied away from performing publicly. But local star (and future collaborator) Tim Reynolds finally goaded Matthews to join him on stage one night, and Matthews stunned the audience with his performance.NETQUOTEVAR:2 This eventually led to his first professional musical gig at a modern dance performance by the Miki Liszt Dance Company, singing "Sensitive Feelings," composed by John D'earth and Dawn Thompson. In 1990 he hatched the idea to form his own band.
Matthews had originally envisioned someone else singing his songs. Yet after writing his first few songs, including "The Song that Jane Likes" and "Recently", he began to consider starting his own band. Matthews formed The Dave Matthews Band in early 1991 with Boyd Tinsley, Leroi Moore, Carter Beauford, Stefan Lessard, and Peter Griesar while he was working as a bartender at Miller's in Charlottesville. The band's first gig was on May 11, 1991, at a private rooftop party held by Lydia Condor at the South Street Warehouse in downtown Charlottesville.
In the late 1990s, Dave Matthews was a commonly featured guest at Rolling Stones concerts. He helped DMB manager Coran Capshaw found ATO Records in 2000, and he remains one of the principals of that label. Matthews released a solo album in late 2003, Some Devil, which went platinum; its single, "Gravedigger," won a Grammy Award in 2004. To support the album, Matthews toured with a group of musicians (most of whom performed on Some Devil) under the name Dave Matthews & Friends . This side project of Matthews continues to be active when DMB is on hiatus.
Since 2001, Matthews has been one of the directors of Farm Aid. Matthews owns 1,340 acres of farmland near Scottsville, Virginia named Maple Hill Farm, where he provides organic vegetables, flowers, and herbs through a community-supported agriculture program. Close to the farm, Matthews maintains the four acre Blenheim Vineyards which utilizes a gravity flow winemaking technique.[citation needed]
Dave Matthews has also acted in two feature films. He played Will Coleman in the 2003 adaptation of the novel Where the Red Fern Grows. He also portrayed the character Otis in the 2005 film Because of Winn-Dixie, which was based on the novel of the same name.
