Mark Sandman (September 24, 1952 – July 3, 1999) was an American singer, songwriter, musical instrument inventor, multi-instrumentalist and comic writer. Sandman possessed a distinctive, deep bass-baritone voice and a mysterious demeanour. He was an indie rock icon and longtime fixture in the Boston/Cambridge music scene, best known as the lead singer and slide bass player of the band Morphine. Sandman was also a member of the blues-rock band Treat Her Right and founder of Hi-n-Dry, a recording studio and independent record label. On July 3, 1999, he suffered a heart attack during a concert in Italy and died instantly. He was highly regarded by many other bass players for his unique "slow and murky" style, with Les Claypool, Mike Watt, and Josh Homme all citing Sandman as an influence. Early life Mark Sandman was born into a Jewish American family in Newton, Massachusetts. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts, then worked a variety of blue-collar jobs, including construction, taxi driving, and commercial fishing. Sandman once noted he would often earn considerable overtime pay, which allowed him to take leave of work and travel outside of New England to places such as rural Colorado—the setting for a number of Treat Her Right and Morphine songs penned by Sandman, including "Thursday," "The Jury," and "I Think She Likes Me." Two tragic events affected Sandman's life and would later influence his music: he was robbed and stabbed in the chest during a robbery in his cab, and his two brothers died. These events would later be recounted in the Treat Her Right song "No Reason." His mother, Guitelle Sandman, later self-published Four Minus Three: A Mother's Story, a book about the loss of her three sons. Few details are publicly known about Sandman's personal life. Fans have often speculated that many of Sandman's songs were autobiographical, which to this day remains unconfirmed. Although Sandman served as an unofficial spokesman for Morphine, he avoided answering questions about his personal life or his professional experiences outside of the music business. Sandman was reported to have been particularly secretive about his age, becoming angry with any reporter who expressed an interest in revealing it publicly, perhaps because he was 10 to 20 years older than most of his indie-rock contemporaries. Musical career Along with Morphine, which he formed in 1989, Sandman was a member of the bands Treat Her Right, Sandman, Candy Bar, the