David Lee Marks (born August 22, 1948) is an American retired guitarist who was an early member of the Beach Boys.

While growing up in Hawthorne, California, Marks was a neighborhood friend of the original band members and was a frequent participant at their family get-togethers.

[4] Afterward, Marks worked with acts including Casey Kasem's Band Without a Name, the Moon, Delaney & Bonnie, Colours, and Warren Zevon, and studied jazz and classical guitar at the Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory.

[1] Inspired by a 1958 performance by guitarist John Maus (later of the 1960s Walker Brothers), Marks asked his parents to buy him a guitar, which they did on Christmas Eve, 1958.

[7] In 1959, Marks and Brian Wilson's youngest brother Carl began to develop their own style of playing electric guitars.

[10] Over the next couple of months, Brian experimented with different combinations of musicians, including his mother Audree Wilson, but was not able to interest a major label.

Marks joined the Beach Boys in February 1962, replacing Al Jardine who had left (not for dental school as is often stated).

And the tiny amateurish guitar sound and lazy feel of the [earlier demo] World Pacific version of 'Surfin' Safari' had now transformed into something crisp and modern.

Jardine returned on a part-time basis to fill-in on bass for Brian Wilson, who had already begun to detach himself from the touring band as early as the spring of 1963.

At the height of their first wave of international success, Marks quit the Beach Boys in late August 1963 toward the end of the group's summer tour during an argument with Murry Wilson, the Wilson boys' father and the band's manager, but did not immediately leave the band until later that year when his parents and Murry came to blows over financial and managerial issues.

The band was initially a side project for the aspiring songwriter, who was growing tired of his songs being passed over for Beach Boys records by Murry Wilson.

After Marks left the Beach Boys, the Marksmen became his full-time focus, and one of the first acts to be signed to Herb Alpert's A&M Records in 1964.

He then worked with the late 1960s psychedelic pop band, The Moon, along with Matt Moore, Larry Brown, and David Jackson.

In early 1971, after reuniting onstage in Boston with the Beach Boys, despite a chilly reception from both the public and Bruce Johnston, Marks received an offer from Mike Love to rejoin the band but he declined.

[15] Instead, he spent the next 25 years playing with artists like Buzz Clifford, Daniel Moore (writer of "My Maria" and "Shambala"), Gary Montgomery, Jim Keltner, Carl Radle, Leon Russell, drummer-turned-actor Gary Busey, Delbert McClinton, Warren Zevon, and many others, earning a reputation as a solid session guitarist without cashing in on his notoriety as having been a Beach Boy.

In 1988, when the Beach Boys were inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Marks was neither invited nor acknowledged at the ceremony, an oversight which was reportedly finally rectified in 2007.

Marks rejoined the Beach Boys as a full-time member playing lead guitar in 1997, when Carl Wilson, fighting cancer, was unable to continue touring with the group.

On December 16, 2011, it was announced that Marks would be reuniting with Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, and Bruce Johnston for a new Beach Boys album and 50th anniversary tour in 2012.

[21] In June 2013, Brian Wilson's website announced that he was recording and self-producing new material with Jardine, Marks, former Beach Boys member Blondie Chaplin, Don Was, and Jeff Beck.

[33] The documentary included some footage from a private reunion of Brian Wilson, Love, Jardine, Marks, and Johnston at Paradise Cove, where the Surfin' Safari album cover photo was taken in 1962.

[34][35][36] Brian Wilson, Love, Jardine, Marks, Johnston, and Blondie Chaplin also participated in a non-performing reunion at the documentary's premiere on May 24, 2024.