David John Matthews was born on January 9, 1967, in a suburb near Johannesburg, South Africa. When Dave was two years old, his family moved to the New York suburb of Yorktown Heights, where his father, a physicist, worked for IBM. Dave, who usually loves a good laugh or joke, seems to grow
             quiet when speaking of his father. Matthews calls him "one of the grandees
             of the superconductor" and describes a loving family that included Jane, an
             older sister, Anne, and a brother, Peter. The family was torn when his father,
             John developed lung cancer. "We figure he might have got the disease from
             the radioactive material he handled," Matthews thought. His father died when
             Dave was 10. This was not the only tragedy for Dave's family. Before the release of Dave's 1994 album, Under The Table And Dreaming, Anne, Dave's older sister, was murdered by her husband. Even though Matthews has never spoken publicly about his sister, he dedicated "Under The Table And Dreaming" to Anne. He put on the cover of the CD a picture of him and his nephew. Dave and Jane are now raising Anne's children. Dave says that these specific tragedies in his life have shaped the songs that he has written.
             In 1987, Dave took a job as a bartender at a Charlottesville bar called Miller's. Millers was a hangout for local musicians who played gigs on a small stage at the front of the room. One of them was a local music teacher John D'Earth, who later put out a single record and now plays in Bruce Hornsby's band. Nobody in that bar really knew that Dave had a strong talent for music. Slowly and smoothly, he let his secret be known among his new friends at Miller's, "I sat in with Tim Reynolds a few times, and I played with John D'Earth. I started to open up." One day he let everyone know that he'd also been writing songs. "It's weird," he says. "After a trip to South Africa, I cut off all of my hair. Somehow that gave me the confidence to show people ...