David Carson Berry is an American music theorist and historian, writer about music, and college professor. Among his diverse research interests are American popular music of the 1920s-60s, including a focus on Irving Berlin and Jimmy Van Heusen; the theory and aesthetics of music of the mid-eighteenth through mid-twentieth centuries, including a focus on Igor Stravinsky; and Schenkerian theory and its reception history in the U.S. Berry was born in 1968, in Paragould, Arkansas, as the only child of Jimmy Shelton Berry and Melba Moore Berry. The family moved to Marked Tree, Arkansas in 1969. The parents taught in the town's only school district: the father, social studies; and the mother, home economics. Berry completed primary and secondary school there, graduating as the valedictorian of Marked Tree High School in 1986. Berry attended Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Arkansas, where music composition was his major and trombone performance was a secondary interest; he graduated magna cum laude in 1990, with a Bachelor of Music degree in composition. He next attended Memphis State University, where he initially began working on a masters degree in composition. [More at Wikipedia]

March 28th, 1968 in (Age 56)