David Marks

David Lee Marks (born August 22, 1948) is an American guitarist who was an early member of the Beach Boys.

While growing up in Hawthorne, California, Marks was a neighborhood friend of the original band members and was a frequent participant at their family get-togethers.

Following his departure from the group, Marks fronted the Marksmen and performed and recorded as a session musician.

As the 1950s progressed, Marks sang and played music with the Wilson family at their Sunday night singalongs.

Inspired by a 1958 performance by guitarist John Maus (later of the 1960s Walker Brothers), Marks asked his parents to buy him a guitar, which they did on Christmas Eve, 1958.

He began taking lessons from Maus, who had been a student of Ritchie Valens.

In 1959, Marks and Brian Wilson's youngest brother Carl began to develop their own style of playing electric guitars.

Because he did not appear on the 1961 single "Surfin'", the first performance by the band that became "the Beach Boys", most historians discount him as a true founding member of the group.

Marks was not on the Beach Boys first recording, "Surfin'" for Candix Records on October 16, 1961; that roster included Al Jardine, a high school classmate of Brian Wilson's, who had been singing and playing stand-up bass with the Wilson brothers and their cousin Mike Love.

Over the next couple of months, Brian experimented with different combinations of musicians, including his mother Audree Wilson, but was not able to interest a major label.

Marks joined the Beach Boys in February 1962, replacing Al Jardine on rhythm guitar, and performed on the band's first four albums, Surfin' Safari (1962), Surfin' U.S.A. (1963), Surfer Girl (1963), and Little Deuce Coupe (1963).

Marks joined the Beach Boys in February 1962, replacing Al Jardine who had left (not for dental school as is often stated).

Playing rhythm guitar, Marks ended up performing on the band's first four albums.

On April 16, 1962, the Beach Boys recorded a demo session at Western Recorders that produced the masters for the songs "Surfin' Safari" and "409", that became the band's first double-sided hit, landing them a long-term contract with Capitol Records.

According to biographer Jon Stebbins, Marks's guitar chemistry with Carl Wilson changed the sound of the band.

Writing about the difference between the Beach Boys' Candix Records single and their first Capitol Records release, Stebbins stated: "Compared to 'Surfin`', this was metal. No sign of stand-up bass or folk sensibility on this recording. And the tiny amateurish guitar sound and lazy feel of the [earlier demo] World Pacific version of 'Surfin' Safari' had now transformed into something crisp and modern. 'It was Carl and Dave who brought that electric guitar drive into the band', says Al Jardine. 'And because of that, Brian was able to expand a little bit.'"

Marks continued to sing and play rhythm guitar with the Beach Boys on their first four (plus) albums, including the early hit singles "Surfin' Safari", "409", "Surfin' U.S.A.", "Shut Down", "Surfer Girl", "In My Room", and "Be True to Your School".

Marks played over 100 concerts with the Beach Boys, toured across the United States with them, and appeared on their first string of national TV appearances.

Marks contributed to their tightly knit sound, as well as their youthful look on the early Beach Boys' album covers.

Although it has been assumed that Marks left the Beach Boys when Jardine returned to the band, this was not exactly the case.

In August 1963, he left the band due to personal problems with manager Murry Wilson.

Afterward, Marks worked with acts including Casey Kasem's Band Without a Name, the Moon, Delaney & Bonnie, Colours, and Warren Zevon, and studied jazz and classical guitar at the Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory.

Brian realized that the combination of Carl and Marks playing brought a rock guitar sound to his original compositions, and the two teenagers participated in Brian's first songwriting efforts that led to the band's 1963 hit single "Surfer Girl".

Marks and Jardine were both part of the 1963 Beach Boys touring line-up.

Jardine returned on a part-time basis to fill-in on bass for Brian Wilson, who had already begun to detach himself from the touring band as early as the spring of 1963.

At the height of their first wave of international success, Marks quit the Beach Boys in late August 1963 toward the end of the group's summer tour during an argument with Murry Wilson, the Wilson boys' father and the band's manager, but did not immediately leave the band until later that year when his parents and Murry came to blows over financial and managerial issues.

The first show without Marks on guitar was October 19, 1963, though he would stay friends and be in close contact with various band members for many years, and he would remain, unbeknownst to him, a legal member of the Beach Boys until September 27, 1967.

In February 1963, Dennis Wilson was injured in a car accident.

His replacement was Mark Groseclose, who went to high school with Carl Wilson.

Marks and Groseclose became friends and Marks eventually took over Groseclose's garage band, the Jaguars, which he renamed the Marksmen.

The band was initially a side project for the aspiring songwriter, who was growing tired of his songs being passed over for Beach Boys records by Murry Wilson.

After Marks left the Beach Boys, the Marksmen became his full-time focus, and one of the first acts to be signed to Herb Alpert's A&M Records in 1964.

Murry Wilson reportedly threatened radio deejays in order to keep them from playing the Marksmen's records.

Later, the group signed with (and released a single on) Warner Bros. Records, but in spite of packed concert venues up and down the state of California, lack of airplay precluded any further releases.

From 1997 to 1999, Marks returned to the Beach Boys for their live performances.

In 2007, he released an autobiography, entitled The Lost Beach Boy.

The 2009 release of Marks & the Marksmen Ultimate Collector's Edition 1963–1965 marks the first-time the entire Marksmen catalog was made available to the public.

He briefly reunited with the group for their fiftieth-anniversary tour and the 2012 album That's Why God Made the Radio.

At age seven, David Lee Marks moved into a house across the street from the family home of the three Wilson brothers, Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, later the founding members of The Beach Boys.

Describing the neighborhood, Marks noted, "It was run down. There were no sidewalks. The houses were older and the Wilsons lived in a pretty small, modest two-bedroom home. The boys all shared a bedroom. When they got older, Brian started sleeping in the den more and more, which was a converted garage they had turned into a music room. They had a Hammond B-3 organ, an upright piano, and a little hi-fi in there."