david simpkins’ biography

  Americana singer/songwriter David Simpkins has been performing in public for over 35 years. He traces his musical talents back to his paternal grandfather, Hamilton Simpkins, who fronted a Bedford, Virginia string music quartet known as “Doc And His Boys” in the late 1920s. Playing rhythm guitar in that band was eight-year-old Troy Simpkins — Ham’s son, David’s father. David was also eight years old when he got his first guitar for Christmas in 1962.

David spent the first 22 years of his musical career playing in cover bands in southwestern Virginia. Those cover bands truly “covered” a wide spectrum of styles: rock, folk, country, blues, even (shudder) disco. David has added bits and pieces from each genre to his own distinctive Americana style.

David’s many bands played with and opened for a number of nationally and internationally known musicians, including the Ventures, NRBQ, the Nighthawks, Bob Margolin, Waxing Poetics, Tiny Lights, and Lowen & Navarro.

In 1990, he co-founded an original alternative rock band, the Visible Shivers, based in Blacksburg, VA, that released three full-length recordings and several demos over a 10-year run.

The Visible Shivers’ music was played on a number of local, regional, national, and international radio stations. The band also received dozens of positive reviews in sundry music publications. The Visible Shivers were selected as one of the U.S.’s top 125 Best Unknown Bands in Musician magazine’s 1995 competition.

When the band called it quits in 2000, David set out on his own, bolstered by years of experience and a much clearer idea of just who and what he was as a songwriter and a performer.

He has since placed as a finalist in the 2000 Appalachian Fair Best Unknown Country Songwriters competition in Gray, Tennessee. He was the winner of the Floyd, Virginia, World Music Festival Showcase Stage Best Song competition in 2002 and finished second in the performance category.

He is an infrequent (gas prices!) attendee of meetings of the Johnson City, Tennessee chapter of the Nashville Songwriters Association International and the Southwest Virginia Songwriters Association of Roanoke, Virginia.