BOYD TINSLEY

The last official member to join the band, Boyd was born almost 28 years before he
officially joined the band. Charlottesville welcomed Boyd Calvin Tinsley on May 16, 1964.
Boyd took up the violin by accident (SITL p 43), but picked it up quickly and played it
up until his college days. While in college at the University of Virginia, he quit playing
to concentrate on his studies, majoring in History. After UVA, Tinsley picked his violin
back up and began performing professionally. He played some gigs at his college Fraternity,
Sigma Nu, and formed a band. Boyd and Henry Faulkner joined to become Down Boy Down, and
then expanded the twosome to form the Boyd Tinsley Band. BTB played throughtout the Southeast,
opening for Blues Traveler a few times, and were very popular in Charlottesville. Tinsley
and his band composed about 30 original tunes, and covered numerous college-sound favorites,
including Bob Dylan's "Tangled Up In Blue" and the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie".

In February, 1991, the founding members of the Dave Matthews Band asked Boyd to
guest on a song for a demo. Tinsley sat in on "Tripping Billies", but the rest was not
exactly history. Tinsley still had his band, and a few other side projects around C'ville.
Often, in 1991 concerts, DMB would play most of their set at the Eastern Standard, and Boyd
would arrive late from another C'ville bar and join the band for the last few songs. Tinsley
usually sang his own song, True Reflections, and would then join on Billies and the Bob
Marley song, Exodus, an early DMB cover. Tinsley also sang lead on a few early DMB covers;
John Prine's "Angel From Montgomery" and "Hey Joe", made popular by Jimi Hendrix.

Tinsley continued his songwriting for DMB songs with So Much To Say. Dave and
Peter Griesar eventually re-worked the original Boyd piece, but Tinsley was the first
(along with Peter) to share songwriting credit on a DMB song with Dave. SMTS went on to
win the band their first Grammy @ in 1996.

Tinsley officially joined DMB in April of 1992, as its last official member. The
BTB played their last concert on April 30, 1992. Tinsley long expressed a want to write
more songs, and in 2003, he wrote 9 new songs (plus True Reflections and a cover song) for
his first solo record, "True Reflections".

Tinsley is married (Emily) with a daughter (Abigail).