Blues Traveler's John Popper, "Crash" Producer Steve Lillywhite Remember DMB's LeRoi Moore

John Popper of Blues Traveler and producer Steve Lillywhite both talked to Rolling Stone about the loss of their friend, Dave Matthews Band saxophonist LeRoi Moore. "He was a very sweet man," said Popper. "He was always about the music. He was like a tough jazz musician. He was always more about how you play than how the crowd bought it. He was always talking music." Popper first met Moore when DMB opened for Blues Traveler in 1991. "When he came to DMB, he brought a whole new foundation. As a sax player, there was a confidence when someone was using those scales and coming from his school. He was one of the best sax players I've ever heard," Popper said.

Steve Lillywhite, who produced DMB's Under the Table and Dreaming, Crash and Before These Crowded Streets, said of LeRoi — which means "the king" in French — "He was very much the king of a lot of things he did. I have great memories of staying up late in the studio working on music collages with him." Lillywhite adds, "He was a beautiful person. He had music — music was the number one thing for him." As for his favorites of Moore's contributions, Lillywhite remembers Moore's work on the Under the Table and Dreaming cut "Lover Lay Down," as well as Moore's most "essential" performance, the "Bartender" found on the "Lillywhite Sessions" bootleg. "It's a sad time for all of us, but he has a legacy that will always live."

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Song Stories

“The A Team”

Ed Sheeran | 2011

This debut track from the then-20-year-old British singer-songwriter has a dark story behind it. Sheeran says he culls songwriting inspiration from "viewing other people's situations," which, for the heroine in "The A Team," involves drug addiction and prostitution that began as a teen. Sheeran paints the woman's trials with haunting imagery such as "But lately her face seems/Slowly sinking, wasting/Crumbling like pastries." "I did a gig at a homeless shelter, [and the song] is about one of the women there. It's her story," he said.

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