Carl Ellis Chambers
Born: 12/17/46
Currently lives in Auburndale, FL

Major Guitar Influences:
The Ventures, Duane Eddy, Jim Stafford, Chet Atkins, Freddy King, Lonnie Mack, Steve Cropper, Dickie Betts
Major Writing Influences:
Gram Parsons, Bobby Braddock, David Bellamy, Herb McCullough, Bob McDill, Guy Clark
Hobbies & Interests:
Music, record collecting, model railroading, web design

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Carl Chambers was born to parents Ellis (Bud) and Lillian Chambers, on December 17, 1946, at Lakeland Memorial Hospital in Lakeland, Florida. Both his father and mother were musically inclined and had both played and sang in an old-time country band, the Dizzy Ramblers, in North Alabama before moving to Central Florida in 1939. Although his father only had a third grade education, he had exceptional math skills and landed a job as a saleman with the American Bakeries Company in the early forties. In other words he drove a Merita Bread truck, a job he would keep for over 35 years.

Carl grew up listening to and watching his daddy play the fiddle, along with his uncles Boots and Ervin Eubanks on guitar and mandolin -- as they played those old-time country tunes and breakdowns in the living room. His father showed him how to make a couple of chords, and then he would go sit in the corner and try to keep up while they played.

Carl and Gerald - c. 1960

His cousin Gerald Chambers was the same age (3 month difference) and lived next door. By the time they were 11, they were playing their guitars together and in '59 or '60 put together their first band to play an 8th grade talent show. They called the band "The Dynamics" and it included classmate, Jon Corneal on drums and someone ( no one remembers who) on bongos. The band came in second to a girl who played piano, but the fire was lit.

Most bands in that day were somewhat loose, personnel wise, and the Dynamics were no exception. Over the bands 2 or so years existence, the band would include Jesse's brother, Billy Joe (vocals and guitar), Aaron Hancock (guitar), Randy Green (piano), Bobby Braddock (piano), Buddy Canova (sax), Jack Pilkington (sax), Ray Lee (drums), and any combination of the above from time to time. The band spent a lot of time rehearsing and were soon playing around on the Central Florida area "Teen Center Circuit". They also did fairly regular guest appearances on "Hi-Time" with Jack Stir, a live weekly teen dance show on WFLA-TV, Channel 8, in Tampa.

Carl's first studio experience came in 1962, when wanna-be songwriter, Bobby Braddock, hired engineer, Ernie Garrison to do a recording session at the Women's Club building in Lakeland, FL. Bobby asked Carl to play lead guitar on the session that featured vocalist Billy Joe Chambers (Carl's first cousin) doing two of Bobby's original songs, "I Stopped Living" and the dark story, "Fallout Shelter".

In 1963, Carl was asked to play lead guitar for an already established local band called "The Starfires", that was being reorganized by the band's charter members, Ronald Whitney and Chuck Brown. Gerald came on board as bass player shortly thereafter and the cousins would anchor "Ron & The Starfires", playing rec centers, teen clubs, fraternity parties, etc., until 1969, when Carl left the group to work with Orlando's "We The People".

More studio experience came in 1964, when Ron & The Starfires recorded demos (direct to acetate disk) at Ernie Garrison's studio in Lakeland. In 1965, the band traveled to Miami and recorded several sides at Criteria Studio with producer Mike Stone. This was their first experience with multi-track recording. The sides were done 3 track, music in stereo first, then overdubbing the vocals. Approximately a year later the band returned to Miami and cut several sides with producer Brad Shapiro.

During the early 1970's, Carl's first marriage failed and he says he spent much of that decade trying to get over it and writing songs about it. He cut his first original song demos  in 1974 at Central Sound Studios in Auburndale, where he had been working for Len Walls (one of the studio owners) as rhythm and lead guitarist, back-up vocalist, co-producer and commercial artist (he designed the album covers).

Carl w/ the Bellamy Bros Band July 4, 1979 - Dade City, FL

On June 3rd, 1978, Carl married Nancy Shafar -- and in August got the opportunity to be the road and recording guitarist for the Bellamy Brothers who were based out of Dade City, Florida, about 40 miles away. After eight weeks of daily rehearsal the Bellamys went out for more than 250 dates in the coming 12 months. Carl recorded 5 number one hits during this stint with the Brothers. All of this time away from home managed to put a lot of stress on his new marriage. While suffering from a stress related illness in a motel room in Evansville, Indiana, he wrote the song "Close Enough to Perfect" about some problems his new bride was having at home in his absence.

In 1980, after leaving the Bellamys, Carl went back to work at Central Sound Studio and started to write in earnest. It was thru that studio connection that Carl met Herb McCullough, a bonified country songwriter, who had moved back into the area after living in Nashville for a time. Herb had recently had a "B" side single on the Moe Bandy hit, "It's a Cheatin' Situation" and made semi-regular treks to Nashville to hawk his wares. Herb heard a few of Carl's songs and asked if he would like to accompany him on his next visit to Music City. Carl claims at that time, he was having visions of bein' more a singin' star than being a songwriter. But Herb introduced him around Nashville and eventually he got involved with "Prairie Dust Records", an independant record label that had previously had some limited new artist success with Con Hunley. When Carl returned to Florida , he recorded the single "Take Me Home With You" (co-written with his wife, Nancy), then returned to Nashville to apply the finishing touches and mixing. Eventually, the single was released and managed a #91 on the "Billboard" charts before a breakdown in communication with the label caused it's premature demise.

Carl at the Orange Blossom Jamboree - 1982

In 1981, after the less than ideal success of trying to be a recording artist, Carl called Chip Peay, who had formerly been manager for the Bellamys and was then with the Ricky Skaggs organization, about his growing catalog of songs. As it happened, Chip was in the process of starting a publishing company and agreed to publish Carl's entire catalog under Chip Peay Music. Chip soon thereafter acquired an Alabama cut on "Close Enough To Perfect". That song became Alabama's 17th #1 hit in a row and with that success Carl acquired a writing deal with Peay and co-publisher, the Welk Music Group in Nashville, as a staff writer.

In 1984, Ricky Skaggs recorded "Love's Gonna Get You" on his album of the same name and that single would eventually climb to #4 on the Billboard chart, where it remained for four weeks. About a year later, Ricky recorded "Brand New Me" on his "Country Boy" album and "He finally Made Up Her Mind", a song Carl co-wrote with Herb McCullough, was recorded on the album "A Memory Like You", by John Schneider (Bo Duke).

In 1985, Carl, Nancy and Joe Spann, working as the Dizzy Rambler Band, started a four year stint of doing daily shows in the Central Florida theme parks, "Circus World" and "Boardwalk & Baseball". Carl continued to write during this period but without commercial success.

Carl at Silver Springs, FL 1999

During the 90's, Carl spent most of his time in his "OutHouse Recording Studio" doing other peoples projects and demos. Although his writing had all but dried up, he continued to play live dates when they were available, usually using singer Joey Foley to front and playing country dance clubs and an occassional concert show. In the late 90s, Carl started to play on and off with the Rogues, a retro-rock band out of Lakeland and in 1999 he taught himself HTML and began doing web design.

Since the arrival of the new millenium, Carl has done progressively more and more 50s-60s-70s rock with "The Rogues" and still claims to find many an excuse to not write. He now has designed and maintains about 25 web sites and has become a more or less self-appointed historian of the the North Polk County music community.

For a more detailed look at Carl's take on the local music scene from 1960 to the present, see "Carl's Scrapbook".

For a look at what Carl is up to these days see "Carl's Scrapbook"/ Y2k's.

For a look at Carl's early years (1946-1960) see "Growing Up".

For a peek at Carl's family roots (30's and 40's) see "Roots".