Carter Buauford

Born Nov 2, 1957 

Carter Beauford has been playing jazz drums since his childhood. 
After playing the drums in college, Carter abandoned playing and started teaching history. But he soon went back to music. He signed on with a fusion band called Secrets, which lasted from 1984 to 1990. 

After the band splt up, Carter went to California to audition for the Arsenio Hall show. 
Failing the audition he came back to the east coast and landed a job on pianist Ramsey Lewis's BET jazz show, "BET on Jazz". 

In January of 1991, Carter moved back to Charlottesville, playing random gigs and driving into Washington to tape the BET show. 

Carter joins The Dave Matthews Band

It was a fairly slow climb, as the musicians - Beauford, along with Dave Matthews on vocals and acoustic guitar, Stefan Lessard on bass, Boyd Tinsley on violin, and Leroi Moore on sax - learned how to mix their disparate musical backgrounds together. Rock, pop, bluegrass, R&B, country, and jazz could all be found on these bandmembers' resumes. With Beauford as its fusion/funk foundation, the Matthews Band grew into a solid, style-hopping quintet that eventually wowed audiences around the globe.