Carl Chambers, Len Walls and Herb McCullough look over lyrics of one of McCullough's songs.

Auburndale overflowing with musical talent

Songwriters next in a line of musicians

Songwriters Herb McCullough, 37, and Carl Chambers, 35, may never attain the status of comedy country star Jim Stafford or the late country rock genius, Gram Parsons. But their chances of success are pretty good, considering the musical environment they grew up around.

McCullough and Chambers are just two of a long line of primarily country music artists who hail from the Auburndale-Winter Haven area. They don't quite know why there's such an abundance of talent in the area Chambers glibly attributes it to "something in the water," and McCullough says it's the result of "smoking orange blossoms." But both men agree Auburndale, in particular, is overflowing with talented musicians some more well-known than others.

McCullough remembers Stafford and Parsons from early high school pop bands they played in around the Winter Haven-Auburndale area during the early 1960s.

Stafford, who attended Winter Haven High School, is still performing his string of well-known country pop hits and getting paid dearly for his efforts. And before Parsons - who was two years behind McCullough at Winter Haven High School - died of a drug overdose, he had gone to California, formed the Flying Burrito Brothers, and was generally acknowledged as having almost single-handedly created what is now loosely called country rock.

Someone who can readily attest to the area's thriving musical tradition is Len Walls, owner of Central Sound Studio on Magnolia Avenue in Auburndale. "People don't realize the musicianship we have here," Walls said from his studio last week, while Chambers and McCullough diligently recorded vocal overdubs for one of McCullough's new songs. "Half the Bellamy Brothers band is from here." The Bellamys themselves are from Dade City, but the group's bass player Donny Helms, and Danny Jones, their steel guitar player, are both from this small town nestled off one side of U.S. 92.

Walls says he never has a problem finding good session musicians to provide backup for artists recording at his 16-track studio, which will be be equipped with 24 tracks in the future. If bluegrass music is the order of the day, Walls can call up any number of bluegrass musicians in the area to fill the bill. (He would have had choice pickings from the hundreds of performers at last weekend's sixth annual State Bluegrass and Clogging Contest, held in downtown Auburndale.) When Chubby Anthony, the late bluegrass fiddle player, was still alive, he recorded many a track at Wall's studio.

Walls, 38, who describes himself as a sound engineer and producer, records a lot of gospel groups at his studio, since Auburndale, besides its substantial bluegrass and country roots, is also part of the Bible Belt. Starting out as a sound engineer for radio stations, Walls opened the studio in 1970, and now divides his time between recording various artists, providing recorded musical background and sound equipment for several national skiing championships, and, mo re recently, handling the live sound mix for country artist Ricky Skaggs, who Walls has accompanied on recent tours.

Skaggs is an example of the Auburndale area's intertwining musical roots. Skaggs cut his musical teeth by performing with country vocalist Emmy Lou Harris, whose sweet warblings were honed while Ms. Harris performed with, guess who, Gram Parsons. Then there's a drummer from Auburndale named Jon Corneal, who recorded with Parsons and played in perhaps the first official country rock band, The Flying Burrito Brothers. The bass player in Skaggs' current band is none other than Jesse Chambers, brother of, guess who, Carl Chambers, who, by the way, is former guitarist for the Bellamy Brothers. Another Auburndale-area musician, Micky Merritt, is piano player for the Skaggs band.

Just for good measure, we probably shouldn't forget two other noted recording artists who hail from this area. Nashville songwriter Bobby Braddock grew up in Auburndale, and was recently honored by the city when it threw a "Bobby Braddock Day" celebration. And songwriter Kent Lavoe, better known as Lobo ("Me and You and a Dog Named Boo") grew up just down the road, in Winter Haven.

For one last surprise, Len Walls pulls out an album of previously unreleased Rock-A-Billy (that's early rock 'n' roll) songs recorded in the late 1950s, with none other than Auburndale's assistant city manager, "Big" John Taylor, playing lead guitar. On the album, titled, "More Rock-A-Billy with Benny Joy," Taylor can be heard playing a mean electric guitar. Before deciding to take a more "normal" job, Taylor played with Benny Joy and later in a band called Big John's Untouchables. A song Taylor wrote in 1957, "Stompin'," appears on the recently issued Benny Joy album, which apparently is not yet available in the U.S. but is something of a collectors item in Europe.

McCullough and Chambers appear to be guiding their careers toward song writing, rather than performing end of the music business. And both men have scored initial successes in that area. McCullough has had two of his songs recorded by Moe Bandy, while the award-winning four-man group Alabama features one of Chambers' songs on the group's latest album.

McCullough is preparing to move to Nashville to write and record more songs, and Chambers has just signed on as a songwriter with a Nashville music publishing company. Len Walls, in the meantime, is blazing his own trail by recording and working with a stable of already established and up-and-coming musical artists.

All in all, as McCullough says, "Auburndale is a great place to play music, because everybody kind of has their own unique playing style. It's different from Nashville."