What is David Marks’s Net Worth?
David Marks is an American guitarist who has a net worth of $1 million. David Marks is best known as a member of the Beach Boys, recording the band’s first four albums in the early 1960s and later returning for live performances in the late 1990s and the early 2010s. After leaving the group the first time, he founded the band the Marksmen and did prolific session work for other artists.
Early Life
David Marks was born on August 22, 1948 in New Castle, Pennsylvania. When he was seven years old, he moved into a house across the street from the Wilson family, which included musical brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl. Marks went on to sing and play music with the Wilsons at their family get-togethers on Sunday nights. On Christmas in 1958, Marks received a guitar from his parents.
The Beach Boys
Marks officially joined the Beach Boys in early 1962, a few months after the band released its first song, “Surfin’.” He replaced rhythm guitarist and singer Al Jardine. The band went on to record the songs “Surfin’ Safari” and “409,” which became its first double-sided hit. Marks played on the first four studio albums by the Beach Boys, each a commercial success: “Surfin’ Safari” (1962), “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” “Surfer Girl,” and “Little Deuce Coupe” (all 1963). Additionally, he performed in over 100 concerts with the Beach Boys across the country and appeared with them on national television. Near the end of the band’s summer tour in 1963, Marks got into a dispute with Wilson patriarch and manager Murry Wilson and decided to quit the band. He eventually left the Beach Boys that October.
Marks briefly reunited with the Beach Boys for a concert in Boston in early 1971, but declined to rejoin the band. He later returned to the group full-time in 1997, when Carl Wilson had to cease touring due to cancer. Marks went on to play around 300 live shows with the Beach Boys before he left the group for a second time in 1999, after he was diagnosed with hepatitis C. He rejoined the band again in 2011 to record the album “That’s Why God Made the Radio,” and in 2012 he and the Beach Boys embarked on the 50th Anniversary Reunion Tour. Marks didn’t play much with the band after that, although he did make appearances with Mike Love and Bruce Johnston’s touring Beach Boys lineup in 2014 and 2015. In 2024, the band released a self-titled documentary film on Disney+ including new and archival interviews.
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The Marksmen
Toward the end of his first tenure with the Beach Boys, Marks befriended the group’s replacement member Mark Groseclose and took over his band the Jaguars. He eventually renamed the group the Marksmen, and after leaving the Beach Boys, he secured the group a record deal with A&M Records. Later, the Marksmen had a contract with Warner Bros. Records. Although the band played to packed concert crowds in California, it struggled to get airplay and didn’t see its full catalog released until 2008.
(Photo by Ferdaus Shamim/WireImage)
Other Musical Projects
In the latter half of the 1960s, Marks played with such groups as Band Without a Name, the Moon, and Delaney & Bonnie and Friends. By the end of the decade, he had become disenchanted with the music scene in Los Angeles and decided to move to Boston. There, Marks studied jazz and classical guitar at Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music. Over the ensuing decades, he did session work for a host of artists, including Daniel Moore, Jim Keltner, Leon Russell, Buzz Clifford, and Warren Zevon.
In 1992, Marks released his first album as a solo artist, “Work Tapes.” He followed that with “Something Funny Goin’ On” in 2003 and “I Think About You Often” in 2006. In 2010, Marks contributed guitar to Al Jardine’s first solo album “A Postcard from California,” and in 2015 he played guitar on Brian Wilson’s tenth solo studio album “No Pier Pressure.” Meanwhile, in the fall of 2013, Marks joined Jardine, Wilson, and guitarist Jeff Beck on a 23-city tour. Among his later projects, he recorded the 2021 album “California Music Presents Add Some Music” with some of his fellow Beach Boys and several children of the group’s original lineup.
Personal Life
With his wife Carrieann, Marks formerly lived in North Salem, New York. In 2013, they moved to Southern California.
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