Mark Roebuck is an American composer and musician living near Charlottesville, Virginia, known primarily for his work as the main songwriter for the 1980s underground power pop group The Deal, and for his later project, Tribe of Heaven.
In his teens, he began writing and recording original music and playing professionally as a folk duo with classmate Eric Schwartz.
They eventually added Hugh Patton and Jim Jones to the lineup and began playing up and down the east coast, while continuing to record demos of their original material.
[6] In late 1983, The Deal recorded Time Won't Come Back, a five-song EP produced by Richard Gottehrer.
[10] It was largely a critical success, called by the Washington Post, 'remarkably assured pop classicism,'[13] and it led to The Deal being named by Musician Magazine one of the twenty best unsigned bands in the world.
They recorded ten songs at the Scottsville, Virginia studio of Charlottesville musician Greg Howard, calling the project Tribe of Heaven, Imagine We Were.
[18] Roebuck was simultaneously working with musicians Mike Colley and TR3's Warren Richardson on another vastly different project, Burning Core.
Burning Core fused elements of rap, metal, funk, and jazz and included a co-written composition with future Dave Matthews Band keyboardist Peter Griesar.
[19] In 2000, after several years away from music, Roebuck joined Big Circle, an ensemble made up of fellow Charlottesville musicians Charlie Pastorfield, Rusty Speidel, Jim Ralston, Tim Anderson, and Tony Fischer.