close-up of man at a drum kit
Carter Beauford in 2008 by Rodrigo Simas under CC BY-SA 2.0

Carter Beauford

Born November 2, 1958, in Charlottesville, Virginia, Carter Beauford, founding member of the Dave Matthews Band, got into the drums early. When Carter was just three, Beauford’s dad, unable to find a babysitter, took him to a Buddy Rich concert. Throughout the show, Carter was entranced. And, shortly afterwards, his pops bought him a Roy Rogers kit with paper heads.

On that first kit and others, Beauford quickly progressed as a percussionist in part by emulating his drumming heroes in the mirror, which led to Carter’s unusual setup and easy ambidextrous playing. And by the age of nine, Beauford was playing professionally. 

In the 80s, Beauford was a key member of the Richmond, Virginia, based jazz fusion band Secrets. In addition to Beauford, the group featured future Dave Matthews Band members LeRoi Moore and Tim Reynolds, as well as keyboardist Butch Taylor and trumpeter John D’earth, among others. The band played throughout Virginia including at Miller’s, the Charlottesville bar where Dave Matthews worked as a bartender, which is how Matthews first came into contact with Beauford, “serving the musicians fat whiskeys” and getting his mind blown by their playing, as Matthews would later recall.

After Secrets dissolved, Beauford continued to play around the region and beyond. He even traveled to Los Angeles for a tryout with the Arsenio Hall Show band.  In early 1991, Beauford was still gigging in Charlottesville while also playing on a BET jazz show when Matthews approached him and LeRoi about recording several songs he had written. The initial rehearsal, with just guitar, sax, and Carter’s drums, was a disaster. But the trio corralled additional musicians and made a second effort. Within a few months, the group had recorded a demo and started making a name for itself around Charlottesville and beyond. From these beginnings, the Dave Matthews Band exploded onto the national scene with their debut album, Under the Table and Dreaming, released on September 27, 1994.

In addition to his work with Dave Matthews Band, Carter Beauford has also worked with other folks such as Carlos Santana, John Popper, and Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. And he is an incredibly well regarded drummer, which his selection as the 10th best drummer of all time on a Rolling Stones readers poll attests to.

Beauford only joined the Dead on stage once, on May 21, 1995, at the Sam Boyd Silver Bowl during the final night of a three-show run that the Dave Matthews Band opened. Beauford comes on in the second set during a jam on the tail end of Corrina, which quickly segues into Drums. The segment starts out rather tight but slowly becomes more open and exploratory, getting more trippy as it goes. It is not entirely clear how long Beauford stays out into Space, but he definitely seems to have left the stage by the time the boys turn in a Spanish Jam that leads to a strong Other One.

Shows Carter Beauford was a guest at:

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