David Mansfield profile picture

David Mansfield

Film composer and musician

About Me

For the LATEST NEWS, MORE INFO, and tons of DOWNLOADABLE MP3s please visit my official website, WWW.DAVID-MANSFIELD.COM

Son of classical musicians and formally trained as a violinist, David was first signed (by the legendary Mary Martin), at sixteen, to Warner Bros. Records as a member of "Quacky Duck And His Barnyard Friends", along with founding members Dan and Daegal Bennett, sons of singer Tony Bennett.
At age 18, David joined Bob Dylan 's band for four years, starting with the "Rolling Thunder Revue". He recorded three albums with Dylan and appears on numerous compilations, including "Biograph" and "Bob Dylan Live 1975 The Bootleg Series Vol. 5". David appeared in the NBC special "Hard Rain", and the feature film "Renaldo and Clara".
In 1976 David was signed to Arista and released three albums (two of which he co-produced with T-Bone Burnett and Steven Soles) as a member of the critically acclaimed "Alpha Band". He later went on to work with Alpha alumni Burnett on his solo albums and other projects, including writing the score for the feature film "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood"
David is an award-winning film and television composer with many major scoring credits . His first film score was for the notorious epic " Heaven's Gate ". It led to a four-film collaboration with director Michael Cimino , which resulted in a Golden Globe nomination for his score for the Oliver Stone-penned " Year Of The Dragon ".
Other long-standing relationships are with the esteemed Mexican auteur Arturo Ripstein , and with Maggie Greenwald ("Ballad of Little Jo", "Songcatcher"). His score for Ripstein's " Deep Crimson (Profundo Carmesi) " won David the Golden Ocelot at the Venice film festival (Best Musical Score); this honor was repeated at the Havana Film Festival. His work with Greenwald is also highly acclaimed; on her film " Songcatcher " (a music-centric film about song collecting in the Appalachain Mountains), David not only wrote the score, but researched and supervised all of the traditional ballad singing and folk music in the film.
David has written scores in a multitude of styles for many other film directors as well, including Harold Ramis , Walter Hill , Thomas Schlamme , Frank Pierson , Robert Duvall , and Gavin O'Connor . Some of the many television directors David has worked with include Glenn Jordan , Jeff Bleckner , Tim Hunter , and Robert Allan Ackerman .
In addition to his composing, David continues to be an avid working musician, both on stage and in the studio. A founding member of " Bruce Hornsby and the Range ", David was awarded an RIAA platinum album and a Grammy Award for "The Way It Is", as well as as RIAA gold albums for Bob Dylan's "Desire", "Street Legal", and "Hard Rain". He performs and records with a wide range of artists , playing a variety of instruments including electric/acoustic/classical/slide/bass guitars, violin/viola, mandolin/mandolo/mandocello, Irish bouzouki, pedal steel/lap steel, banjo and Dobro/National resonator guitars.

OTHER SITES:
My page on the ALL MUSIC GUIDE
My page on IMDB

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My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 9/28/2006
Band Website: WWW.DAVID-MANSFIELD.COM
Band Members: me & a helluva lot of other great musicians
Sounds Like: Here's a video I found on YouTube. Me playing mandolin in 1976 with two guys named Bob. From "Heaven's Gate"; yes my skating/fiddling is live (notice how some shots are out of sync; that's because it wasn't to playback, or even a click). The band is: Sean Hopper, bass; Norton Buffalo, harmonica; Stephen Bruton, guitar; Jerry McGee, accordion; T-Bone Burnett, drums; Cleve Dupin, triangle. Check out Michael Christensen of Big Apple Circus skating and juggling. White Winos

Add to My Profile | More Videos Loudon Wainwright III performs his song "White Winos" on the late ABC newsmagazine show, "Life 360"; I wrote the string arrangement (and am playing violin), and Dick Connette plays spinet. No Sure Way

Add to My Profile | More Videos Loudon Wainwright III performs his song "No Sure Way" on the late ABC newsmagazine show, "Life 360"; I play dobro. This was shortly after 9/11; Loudon (IMHO) wrote the best song to emerge in the aftermath of that event. A Father And A Son

Add to My Profile | More Videos Loudon Wainwright III performs his song "A Father And A Son" on ABC Nightline; I play fiddle, Rob Morsberger plays accordion. Great pics of L. and Rufus, pre-Rolling Stone et al.
Record Label: various
Type of Label: Major

My Blog

CARNAVAL DE SODOMA score released by MovieScore Media on 8/28!

Veteran film composer David Mansfield ("Heaven's Gate", "Desperate Hours", "Transamerica") and Mexican auteur Arturo Ripstein form one of the most interesting composer/director relationships in modern...
Posted by David Mansfield on Wed, 22 Aug 2007 08:41:00 PST

EMMY NOMINATION!!

Van Dyke Parks and I have been nominated for an Emmy for "Broken Trail"! I have the opening music posted here-- go to my official web site (www.david-mansfield.com) and you can hear some more of the s...
Posted by David Mansfield on Thu, 19 Jul 2007 07:14:00 PST

BBS forum at www.david-mansfield.com!

Check out the new BBS I've started at WWW.DAVID-MANSFIELD.COM
Posted by David Mansfield on Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:17:00 PST