A songwriter and an internationally renowned guitarist who performs regularly, including having played in Europe and Mexico and at acoustic guitar festivals. Jimmy Buffet once joined David and his band on stage to play together. His music has been heard on radio, TV, and in films worldwide. His albums have crossed different genres, from Latin Jazz to funk and blues to Hillbilly Flamenco. He has also produced, gives lessons, has a studio, and is the director of a not-for-profit organization created to help young artists through grants and workshops.
“I compose on piano. I have a hobby of restoring hundred-year-old baby grands and uprights. If you saw my living room, you can’t walk through the living room ‘cause we have rescued pianos taking up the whole living room and half the studio.”
“With music, no matter what style of music it is, you can get people’s attention to refocus them on other things that are important, like charities and helping people who need it and animals, etcetera, environmental issues. That’s the thing that I think has kept me in the service area of music for so long.”
“It doesn’t bother me if I hear mistakes. It doesn’t bother me if somebody’s not as technically proficient, or if I’m not. What bothers me about people is when they’re… not fully open to what’s happening at the moment. Sometimes you fall off your world and you get back on it, but as long as the audience falls off with you and can laugh about it, I love that. It’s just like sitting around a campfire and everybody trying to sing an old folk song; we figure it out and it’s fun and it’s human and I love that.”
“If I’m totally into a song, sometimes I don’t remember what song I’m playing, I’m just in the moment, and I found something beautiful. And if there’s something beautiful there that’s maybe more beautiful than what I may have intended, I’m gonna follow that particular beauty wherever it goes and it might not come back to the song I was playing, but it’ll still be beautiful because I’m following it.”
“Guitarists especially fall into allowing the limitations that they have on the instrument to dictate what they play… If you’re playing stuff that’s really easy for you to practice, then you’re not practicing, you’re not stretching yourself.”
“People say, ‘Oh, how did you know when you made it as a musician?’ It’s like, ‘I’ll let you know when I get there, twenty lifetimes from now!’ Maybe. ‘Cause there’s no way.”
"The Bun"
"Black Emerald"