David Allen Schools, known as Dave Schools, is a critically acclaimed bass player and founding member of American rock band Widespread Panic. He is also an accomplished producer, songwriter and journalist with articles published in a wide variety of music magazines. Schools lives in Sonoma County, California with his wife and two dogs; when not on tour he likes to garden. Schools is an innovator on the bass with a non-traditional approach that has given him a unique voice on the instrument. With his primary band, Widespread Panic, he plays a six-string Modulus Quantum 6 bass that affords him a wide range of sounds that are further enhanced by an array of effects pedals. Influenced by an early desire to play drums and childhood piano lessons, Schools has deviated from, though not abandoned, the established rhythm role of the bass and created a more melodic, improvisational style that has been referred to as ?lead bass.? 

December 11th, 1964 in Richmond (Age 59)