David Marks

David Lee Marks (born August 22, 1948) is an American guitarist who was an early member of the Beach Boys. Growing up in Hawthorne, California, Marks was a neighborhood friend of the original band members and regularly attended their family gatherings. After leaving the group, he fronted the Marksmen and worked as a session musician.

Marks joined the Beach Boys in February 1962, replacing Al Jardine on rhythm guitar. He performed on the band's first four albums: Surfin' Safari (1962), Surfin' U.S.A. (1963), Surfer Girl (1963), and Little Deuce Coupe (1963). Because he was not present on the 1961 single "Surfin'", the first release credited to the band as "the Beach Boys," most historians do not consider him a true founding member. He left the band in August 1963 due to personal issues with manager Murry Wilson. Afterward, Marks worked with various artists, 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.

From 1997 to 1999, Marks returned to the Beach Boys for their live performances. In 2007, he released an autobiography titled The Lost Beach Boy. He briefly reunited with the group for their fiftieth-anniversary tour and the 2012 album That's Why God Made the Radio.

David Lee Marks moved into a house across the street from the Wilson family home of Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, who later formed The Beach Boys, when he was seven years old. He described the neighborhood as run down, with no sidewalks and older houses. The Wilsons lived in a modest two-bedroom home, where the boys initially shared a bedroom. As they grew older, Brian began sleeping in the den, a converted garage that had been turned into a music room. It contained a Hammond B-3 organ, an upright piano, and a small hi-fi system.

In the 1950s, 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 studied under Ritchie Valens.

In 1959, Marks and Carl Wilson began developing their own style of playing electric guitar. Brian Wilson recognized the value of their combined sound, which contributed to his early songwriting efforts that led to the band's 1963 hit single "Surfer Girl".

Marks was not part of the Beach Boys' first recording, "Surfin'", for Candix Records on October 16, 1961. That version of the band 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 following months, Brian experimented with different combinations of musicians, including his mother Audree Wilson, but was unable to secure interest from a major label.