Songoftheday 11/12/19 - Up and down the puppies' hair, fleas and ticks jump everywhere 'cause of original sin...

"What Would You Say" - Dave Matthews Band
from the album Under The Table And Dreaming (1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart
Billboard Hot 100 airplay peak: #22 (one week)
Weeks in the Hot 100 Airplay Top-40: 13

Today's song of the day comes from the Dave Matthews Band, a rock outfit named for its leader an lead singer. Born in South Africa, Dave eventually made it to the States as a toddler, eventually finding himself in Virginia by the early 1990s. There he assembled his band, originally with drummer Carter Beauford and saxophonist LeRoi Moore. Soon enough bass player Stefan Lessard, keyboardist Peter Griesar, and violin player Boyd Tinsley joined the group, and they proceeded to tour extensively, and signing to indie label Bama Rags released their first live record Remember Two Things in 1993 (it would later be re-released by RCA in 1997 and go on to sell over a million copies). However the tough schedule caused Griesar to exit the band. The following year brought another EP of live material, Recently, which led the band to be signed by RCA records, where they recorded their first studio album Under The Table and Dreaming, which was released later on in 1994, with assistance from Matthews' friend and sometime bandmate Tim Reynolds. The first song promoted from the record to radio was "What Would You Say", written by Dave and produced by Steve Lillywhite. The funky alternative rock number benefited from the diversity in the band, and eventually nearly a year from the albums release the song made its way on to mainstream radio...

Since "What Would You Say" wasn't released as a commercial single in the U.S., it wasn't able to place on Billboard magazine's official pop Hot 100 chart; however it had so much radio play that it climbed almost to the top 20 on the radio component of the chart in June of 1995. The song did much better on the rock radio charts, going to #5 on the Mainstream Rock and #11 on the Alternative Rock lists. It even crossed over to the "easy listening" format, peaking at #30 on their Adult Contemporary chart. Internationally, the song peaked at #31 in Canada. At the Grammy Awards in 1996, the song was up for best Music Video (which Michael and Janet Jackson took for "Scream"), and was nominated for Best Duo/Group Rock Vocal, which went to Blues Traveler for "Run-Around".

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


Here's the band performing live at Farm Aid in 1995...

And from their Central Park concert in 2003...

Fast forward ten years to a concert in Florida in 2013...

And finally, on Letterman in 2015...

Up tomorrow: Rock band wallow in sadness.