Anthony David, paratrooper veteran, landed easily in mid-century R&B

3 Chords & the Truth, the 2004 debut album from Atlanta’s own Anthony David, turns 20 this year, and so David joins a growing slate of artists paying tribute to their legacy albums. He will appear at Center Stage August 22 for a special evening devoted to the record that launched his career — one steeped in the glory days of mid-century rhythm and bues.

In  a music world where R&B has become an amorphous, catch-all term for Black pop music, David’s dreamy, throwback style is a welcome relief. Structured around warm acoustic guitar strumming and gentle washes of electric keyboard, his music leans less into the TR-808 drum machine kicks and processed vocals of his contemporaries and more into a personal, introspective realm born out of R&B’s roots. Think Bill Withers. 

It was when David’s music began to be compared with Withers hits like “Ain’t no Sunshine” and “Lovely Day” that he became confident in himself as an artist.

David’s journey to soul music troubadour was far from a straight line. He began life as an army brat in Savannah, Georgia, and later become a paratrooper. He began writing songs when he was in Iraq during the Gulf War. He took part in 28 combat missions with the 82nd Airborne, and writing songs was a life-affirming way of dealing with the horrors of war.

When his paratrooper career came to a close, David moved to Atlanta to find himself as an artist. That course of self discovery began not in music but poetry. It was his friendship with singer India Arie — then only an aspiring sensation herself — that got the ball rolling. “She was the first person I met when I moved to Atlanta,” he recalled. “We didn’t do music for about three years. We just hung out. But she would play me stuff that she liked.”

The pair would compare notes on favorite artists from James Taylor to Anita Baker and eventually David became  Arie’s informal manager and musical collaborator. To say their partnership yielded fruitful results is an understatement in the extreme: Years of working in a promotional and songwriting capacity for Arie would culminate in David’s song “Part of My Life,” which appeared on Arie’s double platinum, seven-time Grammy-nominated album Acoustic Soul. 

While earning his bona fides as a behind-the-scenes powerhouse, David began exploring the possibility of emerging as a solo artist. Nevertheless, confidence in his craft remained elusive. A temporary relocation to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 1999 gave him the opportunity to workshop his craft. He began attending open mic nights to hone the material that would go on to make up 3 Chords & the Truth, all while drinking in the local music scene’s bluegrass and country roots.

When he moved back to Atlanta, David got involved in  the local singer/songwriter scene with appearances at the Apache. His burgeoning appeal would earn him the attention of producer LaMarquis Jefferson, who brought David to Jermaine Dupri’s So So Def Recordings studio to record 3 Chords & the Truth.

The truth in the album’s title, David explained, reflected the honest emotions that drove the writing process. In a modern music landscape where pop music is overrun with braggadocious tirades extolling the virtues of bravado and materialism, he emanates a humble sincerity. 

“I was writing for older me,” said David of his earlier song craft. “I didn’t want to be saying things that I would age out of.” In light of that goal, he’s pleased to have written music that still feels relatable 20 years later.

Nevertheless, David looks back on the album’s raw approach with a certain trepidation. “I almost want to reproduce the album again, to be honest,” he said, painfully aware of all of the possibilities that could be explored were the material revisited in light of his artistic maturity. 

That ongoing balancing act between accomplishment and dissatisfaction underpins David’s music even now. For all his success, the blue collar relatability of his work ethic remains intact.

“I only like people that work,” he declared. “I have an uncle that used to say, “If the trash man doesn’t come, we’ll know. But if you don’t sing, who gives a shit?’’

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Jordan Owen began writing about music professionally at the age of 16 in Oxford, Mississippi. A 2006 graduate of the Berklee College of Music, he is a professional guitarist, bandleader and composer. He is currently the lead guitarist for the jazz group Other Strangers, the power metal band Axis of Empires and the melodic death/thrash metal band Century Spawn.