Man I totally agree. Really don’t like DMB so I was a bit surprised at how much I liked his solo stuff. Of course I’m a bit weird. I think the Grateful Dead were much better in the studio, where they were required to be tighter.

my daughter introduced me to DMB back in the 90s. i always liked that they were musicians (and his phrasing always amazed me). i can't play his stuff very well (see: at all), but my son said he learned to play guitar just so he could play stuff for his sister (he's quite good and performs publicly). he's tried to teach me some dave songs, quite often he says, "So, Dave does something kinda weird here..."

fun aside: my daughter and i attended a new year's eve DMB/bela fleck/flecktones concert in the 90s (96?). last year, while driving around with my g'kids the radio popped up a live number from that actual concert. kinda cool telling the kids, "Hey...your mom and I were AT that concert!"

of course, dave got started here in charlottesville (and has a farm just up the road from me), so he's a local fave and an icon.

DMB is one of my all time favorites, even though his singing isn't more than average. I started playing guitar in the late 80's and he was a huge influence in high school and college. I remember my junior year of college turning the lights out and listening to him on my high end (for a college kid) audio system with my roommates. We'd sit there for hours.

Love how unique and complex his playing is. I wasn't a very good player back then, but I remember learning about "Dave Matthews chords" and loving the voicing. I still can't nail his crazy muting and percussive style, but I have fun trying.

Side story, he seems to be a pretty cool guy. DMB came to my college one year. A friend of mine was walking down the street on campus, and Dave stopped and asked if she wanted to get some dinner. They had a nice evening, no funny business, and she said he was just a normal guy not wanting to eat alone.

One of my favorite songs that demonstrate his use of interesting chord voicings is Cry Freedom.

7x46xx
5x47xx
5x24xx
x466xx (this is a standard voicing, just listing it to complete the progression that accompanies the verses)

When I first tried my fingers refused to make the various stretches, and now it's one of my favorite songs to play for friends.

That's a good one. The stretch isn't a problem for me, but the configuration is tricky. Doesn't help my pinky hates me.

I remember when I was a hating DM when I was a metal head kid in high school, then I saw him perform What Would You Say live on late night TV and was blown away that he could play that riff and sing at the same time. A few years later I discovered his Live At Red Rocks album, and it forever changed me as a musician. Totally changed my perspective of what was acceptable as modern music. The song Two Step on that album is phenomenal. It doesn’t hurt that Tim Reynolds played that show with them. I’ve come full circle as a musician with my own unique style of singing and playing, which is based around the acoustic. It feels so much more modern and progressive than electric rock guitar to me.

Similar cool story
https://www.today.com/popculture/dav...fan-6C10636134

Wow. That's fantastic.

Speaking of saving a concert, my wife almost stopped one. She worked for special events during college. They Might Be Giants were playing and right before the show was supposed to start, a guy walked up to one of the back doors and my wife wouldn't let him in. He just shrugged and walked off. Lights went out, stage lights go on, and out walks the guy she stopped. He was part of the band! He was cool about my wife not recognizing him, didn't argue with her, just walked around to a different door and they let him in from there.

Just try and play the licks like your strumming single note chords, never stop moving the right hand. If you cant pick the single notes fret a couple to get the feel. “Stay” is a good example of a multi note fret strum lick, but you would “strum” the lie in our graves intro lick the same way

To my ears, what they have in common is though they're both terrific players (Vai qualifies for amazing), neither is very soulful. I hear them, but I don't feel them.

I love Vai's story about his Zappa audition: audition