The Lillywhite Sessions

The Lillywhite Sessions (tLWS) is a collection of songs recorded by Dave Matthews Band in 1999 and 2000 and produced by Steve Lillywhite. The songs, recorded by the band as a follow-up to their 1998 album Before These Crowded Streets, were ultimately scrapped by the band's label. Upon being forced by the label to abandon the album-in-progress, Dave Matthews was assigned to work with producer Glen Ballard who, in association with Matthews, wrote the album Everyday in just ten days. This contrasted with the band's prior style of writing, which included significant collaboration between the band members in the studio. The recordings later emerged on the Internet shortly after the release of Everyday, and created controversy among fans as well as the music industry, which was early in its campaign to curb illegal file downloads. The Lillywhite Sessions were never officially released, but most of the songs were later recorded for their 2002 album Busted Stuff.

Track listing

"Busted Stuff" – 4:05
"Grey Street" – 5:53
"Diggin' a Ditch" – 4:24
"Sweet Up and Down" – 4:43
"JTR" – 5:36
"Big Eyed Fish" – 5:16
"Grace Is Gone" – 5:12
"Captain (Crazy)" – 5:27
"Bartender" –10:07
"Monkey Man" – 7:21
"Kit Kat Jam" – 4:00
"Raven" – 6:24

Also recorded but cut from the album is the track "Build You a House".

Recording sessions

The album was supposed to be produced in the manner of the band's prior three (Under the Table and Dreaming, Crash, and Before These Crowded Streets), all of which had been produced by Steve Lillywhite. Having recorded Dave Matthews Band in studios in New York City, Woodstock, New York and Sausalito, California, Lillywhite had an established relationship with its members. For this album, the band purchased a house near their hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia and converted a portion of it into a recording studio. The band tried some new things, including Matthews playing a twelve string guitar. In early 2000, Lillywhite posted a report on the band's website with details about the session-in-progress, saying that the band had recorded a number of new songs, including "Sweet Up and Down," and had reworked a song which the Dave Matthews Band performed with Santana in 1999, "John the Revelator," retitling it "JTR."

During the recording of the sessions, RCA Records executive Bruce Flohr asked drummer Carter Beauford about his feelings about the songs at that point, to which he replied that he "didn't feel it" and was almost certain that the other band members "didn't feel it" either, the album was never intended to be titled as such. The title The Summer So Far was simply the name of the band's most current recording of the sessions, dubbed by engineer Stephen Harris, who later produced Busted Stuff. Dave Matthews himself has claimed in several interviews that he intended to title the final album Busted Stuff, which he eventually did when the band went back in the recording studio in 2002 to re-record the album. The title Lillywhite Sessions was dubbed by fans, and the name stuck.

Everyday

During the tour, Matthews was introduced to producer Glen Ballard, and discussed completing the shelved Sessions. During the nine days they spent together, Matthews and Ballard wrote an entire album of new songs before the rest of the band had joined them. The album, which featured electric guitar by Matthews and a minimal use of the rest of the band, was released in February 2001 as Everyday.

Internet leak

In March 2001, Craig Knapp, the lead singer of Dave Matthews Band cover band "Ants Marching," received a CD from a friend containing the lost Lillywhite Sessions. He then contacted producer Steve Lillywhite via e-mail inquiring what to do with the tracks, and posted his message on the message boards at Dave Matthews Band fan site "DMBML."

Hello Mr. Lillywhite,

I thank you in advance for taking the time to read this E-mail. I have unintentionally placed myself in a very precarious situation.

About a week ago, I received an E-mail from a DMB fan who claimed they had some unreleased material from the new Dave Matthews Band CD. He asked if I wanted a copy, and I said yes, thinking it was going to be acoustic takes from "Everyday." In any event, I received a package yesterday, and it was indeed the session that you and DMB recorded in Virginia.

I love it very much, excellent work. I am blessed to receive this gift.

My question for you is one of moral standards. I would really like to share these songs with the DMB trading community. However, I feel that if the Dave Matthews Band and Steve Lillywhite didn't release these songs, then what gives me that right? I don't want to disrespect the band, or yourself. I guess my question is simply this:

Am I disrespecting the Dave Matthews Band and Steve Lillywhite by making these songs available?

I would really appreciate a response when you get a chance.

Thank you so much for your time,

Craig Knapp

|<pre>Dave Matthews Band

The Summer So Far -- Demo #2

(The Lillywhite Sessions)

Producer: Steve Lillywhite

Recorded: Winter 2000 - Summer 2000

Track Name Time

d1t01 Bartender 06:37.94

d1t02 JTR 07:52.70

d1t03 Busted Stuff 03:56.92

d1t04 Sweet Up & Down 04:32.58

d1t05 Diggin' a Ditch 04:15.09

d1t06 Build You a House 03:58.60

d1t07 Captain 05:38.37

d1t08 untitled jam 05:48.18

d1t09 Grace is Gone 07:33.00

d1 totals 50:13:4

</pre>

Reception

Once the album leaked, attention by fans and media escalated. Many fans were eager for an official release of the sessions. Online feedback from fans, including a website-based campaign called "Release Lillywhite Recordings Campaign," received media attention from Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone, which gave the unmastered album better reviews than the successful Everyday. The song would make a return a decade later on February 28, 2020, at a one-off DMB show at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas.

"Monkey Man" was never released on an album or played live, making it the only song that is exclusively available on The Lillywhite Sessions.

Mastered release

In April 2006, a self-described recording engineer using the alias of "Karmageddon" mastered the tracks from The Lillywhite Sessions and released them on the Internet. Using the original SHN files released online, Karmageddon burned the songs to a CD-R and ran them through high-end audio mastering equipment, such as a parametric equalizer, audio converters, and a tube compressor. The songs were then balanced to distribute the music evenly through stereo channels, and eventually burned back onto a CD-R. Following the release of the mastered album, "Karmageddon," claimed in an interview that the mastering process he used is "basically the TRUE industry standard as to how a CD gets finalized before mass-production." Once the mastered album was released on the internet, it became the first-ever mastered copy of The Lillywhite Sessions, since the original leaked files were simply raw tracks from the mixing board and were never mastered.