The 56-year-old Johannesburg, South Africa-born songwriter and performer Dave Matthews released his latest studio album, Walk Around the Moon, with his famed group the Dave Matthews Band earlier this year. The album was the band’s 10th, to go along with countless live records.
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Indeed, Matthews is prolific, both with his pen and with his performances. Along with the DMB records, he’s released live acoustic albums with Tim Reynolds and solo albums, including the hit LP, Some Devil, in 2003.
But along with the songs he’s written for himself, Matthews has helped a number of artists with their songs, too. From a collab with the Blue Man Group on their 2003 album, The Complex, to the three songs here below, Matthews has put his skills to other people’s songs. Below are three tracks you likely didn’t know were written by Dave Matthews.
1. “Angels,” Robert Randolph & the Family Band
Written by Mark Batson, Robert Randolph, Shannon Sanders, Dave Matthews
Matthews, the rubbery-voiced, heartfelt singer had his hands on two tracks on this album. Along with “Love is the Only Way,” Matthews helped pen “Angels” with Mark Batson, the slide guitar player Robert Randolph and Shannon Sanders. The song appears on Robert Randolph & the Family Band’s 2006 album, Colorblind. Randolph and Matthews, along with their namesake bands, would tour summers in the early 2000s with each other, and songs were bound to be born from those long hours. In this blues song, Randolph sings,
Everytime I see you baby
Every moment steals my breath away
Thought I was cool
Thought I was smooth
You wasn’t havin’ it baby
Cuz I know you can see right through me
I was lonely
I was a mess
I was down and out
And then you lifted me up
You got me believin’ in angels
You see things in me I don’t see
You got me believin’ in angels
(You got me, you got me)
You got me believin’ in angels
2. “Work It Out,” Jurassic 5
Written by Carter Beauford, Akil, Zaakir, Roland Kovac, Stefan Lessard, Dave Matthews, DJ Nu-Mark, Chali 2NA, Marc 7
In the early 2000s, the Los Angeles-born rap group Jurassic 5 was one of the best in the business. They brought charm, charisma, lyricism and a friendship quality that was unmatched. In a time when salacious topics were all the rage in rap, Jurassic 5 brought their song concepts up to a literary level. So, when they connected with Dave Matthews and his band for the song “Work It Out” many hip-hop and jam band fans rejoined in unison. From Jurassic 5’s 2006 album, Feedback, this song also features Matthews performing on the hook. Sings the frontman,
A don’t stop stop your dreamin
Let yourself float upon the notion
We can work it out, we gon work it out baby
Go ahead lose yourself inside this opportunity
That we gonna make it right now, make it right now
3. “Why/Crush/Why (What’s Going On),” DMB with The Roots
Written by the Roots, Dave Matthews Band, Al Cleveland, Renaldo Benson, Marvin Gaye
A lesser-known live performance by Matthews and company, this song came to fans in 2006 when Matthews and his band accepted an award from the NAACP. Onstage, the group performed with the Roots, the first live band of hip-hop, bridging a DMB song “Crush” with Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” with some more unique singing and musicianship for the moment. While sticklers may say Matthews didn’t write a ton of original music for this particular mash-up, just seeing DMB and the Roots together onstage for a one-of-a-kind performance is enough for everyone else. Whether this song was written in an improvised soundcheck or over the course of days doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact it exists for music lovers in perpetuity.
Photo by Rich Polk/Getty Images On Location
