David Marks (songwriter)

Last updated
David Marks
Birth nameDavid Holland
Also known asSpiros David Markantonatos
Born (1944-02-12) 12 February 1944 (age 79)
Occupation(s)Guitarist, vocalist, record producer, publisher, sound engineer, author
Instrument(s)
  • Guitar
  • Vocals
  • Bass guitar
  • Harmonica

David Marks is a South African-born songwriter, [1] singer, producer, music archivist, and publisher who has been a member of the South African music industry since the 1970s. He spent much of his early career mixing, recording, releasing, and archiving a broad cross-spectrum of South African music.

Contents

Marks achieved success with his songwriting, penning some international hits, most notably "Master Jack", "Mr. Nico", and "Hey Mister"—songs that Marks wrote prior to 1967 whilst working underground in South Africa’s Free State gold mines. Marks is also known for his work as a sound engineer and director of the 3rd Ear Music Company.

Living Legacy

Marks amassed a collection of material that documents South African music from the mid 1960s to the early 2000s. In 1990 Marks formed the Hidden Years Music Archive Project to safeguard and preserve the material he collected. The collection has been estimated to contain around 175 000 items, amounting to seven tons of material that documents diverse musical styles ranging from urban folk to township jazz, country rock, choirs, maskanda and traditional musics. [2]

This collection was donated to the Documentation Centre for Music at Stellenbosch Universityin 2013 where it is managed by Dr Lizabé Lambrechts in collaboration with Marks.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digitization</span> Converting information into digital form

Digitization is the process of converting information into a digital format. The result is the representation of an object, image, sound, document, or signal obtained by generating a series of numbers that describe a discrete set of points or samples. The result is called digital representation or, more specifically, a digital image, for the object, and digital form, for the signal. In modern practice, the digitized data is in the form of binary numbers, which facilitates processing by digital computers and other operations, but digitizing simply means "the conversion of analog source material into a numerical format"; the decimal or any other number system can be used instead.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cairo Geniza</span> Collection of Jewish manuscript fragments

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Library of South Africa</span> South African government agency

The National Library of South Africa is the agency of the government of South Africa which maintains a national library of all published materials relating to the country.

The Ruckers family were harpsichord and virginal makers from the Southern Netherlands based in Antwerp in the 16th and 17th century. Their influence stretched well into the 18th century, and to the harpsichord revival of the 20th.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital Himalaya</span> Digital preservation project

The Digital Himalaya project was established in December 2000 by Mark Turin, Alan Macfarlane, Sara Shneiderman, and Sarah Harrison. The project's principal goal is to collect and preserve historical multimedia materials relating to the Himalaya, such as photographs, recordings, and journals, and make those resources available over the internet and offline, on external storage media. The project team have digitized older ethnographic collections and data sets that were deteriorating in their analogue formats, so as to protect them from deterioration and make them available and accessible to originating communities in the Himalayan region and a global community of scholars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burger Lambrechts</span> South African shot putter

Burger Lambrechts is a South African shot putter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Washington University Libraries</span> Library system of Washington University in Missouri, United States

Washington University Libraries is the library system of Washington University in St. Louis. The system includes 12 libraries and over 5.5 million volumes. The John M. Olin Library is the central library.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michigan State University Libraries</span>

Michigan State University Libraries is the academic library system of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. The library system comprises nine branch locations including the Main Library. As of 2015-16, the MSU Libraries ranked 26th among U.S. and Canadian research libraries by number of volumes and 11th among U.S. and Canadian research libraries by number of titles held.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erik Chisholm</span> 20th century Scottish composer and conductor

Erik William Chisholm was a Scottish composer, pianist, organist and conductor sometimes known as "Scotland's forgotten composer". According to his biographer, Chisholm "was the first composer to absorb Celtic idioms into his music in form as well as content, his achievement paralleling that of Bartók in its depth of understanding and its daring", which led some to give him the nickname "MacBartók". As composer, performer and impresario, he played an important role in the musical life of Glasgow between the two World Wars and was a founder of the Celtic Ballet and, together with Margaret Morris, created the first full-length Scottish ballet, The Forsaken Mermaid. After World War II he was Professor and Head of the South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town for 19 years until his death. Chisholm founded the South African College of Music opera company in Cape Town and was a vital force in bringing new operas to Scotland, England and South Africa. By the time of his death in 1965, he had composed over a hundred works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Historic New Orleans Collection</span> Museum and publisher in New Orleans, Louisiana

The Historic New Orleans Collection (THNOC) is a museum, research center, and publisher dedicated to the study and preservation of the history and culture of New Orleans and the Gulf South region of the United States. It is located in New Orleans' French Quarter. The institution was established in 1966 by General and Mrs. L. Kemper Williams to keep their collection of Louisiana materials intact and available for research and exhibition to the public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woodson Research Center</span>

Woodson Research Center is an archive located in Fondren Library at Rice University in Houston, Texas. The Center is named for Benjamin N. Woodson and houses the special collections of Rice University's Fondren Library which includes manuscript collections, rare books, and the Rice University archives. Within the manuscript collections, there are archives focused on specific collecting areas, which include the Houston Asian American Archive, the Houston Folk Music Archive, and the Houston Jewish History Archive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archives of American Art</span> Collection of primary resources of visual arts in the United States

The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washington, D.C., and New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Road to Emmaus appearance</span> Event from the Gospel of Luke

According to the Gospel of Luke, the road to Emmaus appearance is one of the early post-resurrection appearances of Jesus after his crucifixion and the discovery of the empty tomb. Both the meeting on the road to Emmaus and the subsequent supper at Emmaus, depicting the meal that Jesus had with two disciples after the encounter on the road, have been popular subjects in art.

The Documentation Centre for Music (DOMUS) forms part of the Special Collections Division of the Music Library within the Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service and is located in the Music Department. Collections acquired through acquisitions, donations or bequests over more than 50 years form the main holdings and are mostly of South African but also of international significance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stanford University Libraries</span>

The Stanford University Libraries (SUL), formerly known as "Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources" ("SULAIR"), is the library system of Stanford University in California. It encompasses more than 24 libraries in all. Several academic departments and some residences also have their own libraries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hidden Years Music Archive</span> South African music archive

The Hidden Years Music Archive is an archive and interdisciplinary research project dedicated to the preservation and study of alternative and popular South African music. Established by David Marks in 1990, the archive holds a collection of around 175 000 items, which includes sound recordings, photographs, posters, programs, documents, press cuttings, notebooks, and diaries... The Hidden Years is a repository of urban folk tunes, township jazz expressions, country rock music, choir works, maskanda, and various traditional musics. In 2013 the archive was donated to the Documentation Centre for Music at Stellenbosch University and has since been managed by Dr Lizabé Lambrechts as the principal researcher and project leader. From 2017 the project has been hosted by the Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation at Stellenbosch University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation</span> Research institute

The Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation (AOI) at Stellenbosch University is an interdisciplinary research institute dedicated to music studies. Founded in 2016 by the music scholar and writer Stephanus Muller, the institute provides supervision to postgraduate fellows from a variety of disciplines and functions as an independent research hub in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Its mission is to create an institutional space for scholars and artists that encourages experimentation and risk taking. AOI's community include postgraduate and postdoctoral fellows, extraordinary professors, research associates, composers, performers, sonic residents, archival and heritage practitioners and international partners.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hogan Jazz Archive</span> Jazz music archive in the United States

The Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz is located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, and is one of the special collections of the Tulane University library. The archive specializes in Dixieland Jazz, gospel, blues, rhythm and blues, Creole songs, and related musical genres. Its collection includes: Oral histories, audio and video recordings, photos and other images, sheet music, personal papers, and teaching aids.

Mhlahleni James "14" Shabalala was a South African Maskandi musician who came from Bergville in KwaZulu-Natal. He was part of the alternative music scene in South Africa. Shabalala was very popular as a result of his live performances at festivals and concerts throughout the country. He performed at the Splashy Fen festivals in the 1990s, and toured with musicians such as Joseph Shabalala and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

References

  1. Brady, Bradford; John Maron (April 14, 2006). "Four Jacks and a Jill scored a No. 18". Lewiston Tribune . Retrieved 25 June 2011.
  2. Lizabé Lambrechts, 'Letting the tape run: the creation and preservation of the hidden years music archive', South African Journal of Cultural History 32:2 (2018), 1-23. https://journals.co.za/content/journal/10520/EJC-14fca9725f