David Berman (1967-2019)

David Berman (1967-2019)

David Cloud Berman (born David Craig Berman) was an American musician, singer, poet and cartoonist best known for his work with indie-rock band the Silver Jews. Although the band primarily existed as a recording project for most of its existence, the Silver Jews toured regularly from 2005 until 2009. In January 2009, Berman announced his retirement from music in hopes of finding a meaningful way of undoing the damage that his estranged father Richard Berman (a lobbyist and public relations executive for the alcohol and tobacco industries, among others) had brought upon society.

In addition to the six full-length albums that Berman wrote and recorded with the Silver Jews, he released two books: Actual Air (1999) and The Portable February (2009). In early 2019, Berman returned to music under the new band name Purple Mountains, releasing a self-titled debut album in July 2019.

Achievements:

Upon graduation from the University of Virginia, the trio moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, where they shared an apartment and adopted the moniker Silver Jews recording discordant tapes in their living room. At this time Berman was a security guard at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art. Working in this environment influenced him artistically; Berman spoke about this time saying "We were working at the Whitney with all this conceptual art, and we were learning about it … and so I thought, 'Well let’s just make this record that looks like a record, and has song titles and everything, but the songs would be the ones we make at home that sound terrible.'"

Charity: The Renette And David Berman Family Foundation