World War II was still raging when 8-year-old Charles Anderson Chambers – already a skilled flattop guitar player – signed up for music lessons at Allen’s Music Store in Chattanooga.
And it changed his life forever.
A decade later, Charles Chambers was a household name throughout the Chattanooga area: one of the three original members of the Bob Brandy Trio and a regular on Brandy’s children’s show on Channel 9, which baby boomers who grew up in the area still remember vividly.
“I loved that television work,” Mr. Chambers recalls, standing behind the counter of the Rossville store he has owned and operated for more than four decades. “I still run into people sometimes who remember that show.”
In the store, he is surrounded by momentos of his two lifelong passions: music, and golf. “The golf stuff sells better during the summer and the musical instruments during the winter,” he explains. “Really, it takes both of them to keep us going.”
The store has a wide following among area musicians such as Kevin Workman, a regular in Ate Face, a heavy metal band that appears regularly at Ziggy’s.’’
“I’ve been coming in and out of here for years,” Mr. Workman says. “This place sells parts that you just can’t find anywhere else.”
Still, performing remains Mr. Chamber’s No. 1 love; he operates the store in addition to – not instead of – continuing his career as a musician.
Every Saturday night, he and the other members of the Charles Chambers Trio can be found playing for an enthusiastic crowd in the ballroom right beside East Ridge City Hall.
“I’m never going to retire,” the 70-year-old musician declares. “As long as I can get out of bed, I’m going to keep playing.”
Born on Cannon Crossing (now Park City Road) in Rossville in 1936, Mr. Chambers was the oldest of the eight children of his hard-working parents, Robert and Goldie Grout Chambers.
His dad worked days as a homebuilder, he says, “and then at night we’d help people move, so we could make a little extra money.”
When the family wasn’t working, music filled their home. His father was a skilled harmonic player, Mr. Chambers remembers, and started his oldest son playing guitar when he was just five years old.
The five-year-old caught on fast; soon he was playing guitar like an old hand.
“But my dad wanted me to learn to read music, not just play by ear,” he says. “That’s why he signed me up for lessons when I was eight.”
His music teacher, Tani Allen, had a daily one-hour program on a local radio station. Before long the young guitar student was appearing frequently on Allen’s program, dubbed “Coffee Cup Hawaii” because Hawaiian music was popular at the time.
By the time he was 12, Mr. Chambers recalls, Allen had begun finding him jobs as a professional musician. He became a regular on local shows such as the one featuring “Country Boy Eddie,” who gave Tammy Wynette her start.
During the 1950s, when TV came to Chattanooga, the teenager made the transition easily. Soon he was a regular on the Bob Brandy Show, in addition to making appearances throughout the community with the Bob Brandy Trio.
“Bob Brandy was originally from Washington, D.C.,” Mr. Chambers recalls, “and he was just a genius at doing children’s shows. He worked for a while down in Georgia, and then Channel 9 hired him to come here and do a show. He was on the air five days a week, and we appeared every Friday as the Bob Brandy Trio.”
Brandy, who also played guitar, was one of the three original players in the trio that bore his name, Mr. Chambers says. “The drummer was Rome Benedict, and then there was me on guitar.”
After his brother Joe completed his military service, he joined the trio as a bass player, Mr. Chambers recalls. And eventually Les Sharp joined the group as a drummer, substituting for Rome Benedict when he couldn’t be there.
“Sometimes we played five or six jobs a day,” he says, “going from place to place. And then at night we’d play the clubs . . . .”
In 1963, Mr. Chambers opened a music store in the building where Kingwood Pharmacy is now located, he says. Between that and his constant round of performances, he says frankly, “I was working day and night. My kids didn’t even know they had a daddy for a long time.”
“But I don’t worship money,” he is quick to add. “I never have. I just wanted to play.”
His family thought he should slow down, he says. Once his dad persuaded him to take a week off and go to Florida for a vacation.
“I couldn’t stand it, not having anything to do,” he says. “I came back home after two days.”
Finally, in 1973, he himself decided it was time for a break so he “moved to Florida to retire.”
During the next two years, he says, he got to play a lot of great golf. But he missed performing.
In 1975, he returned to the Chattanooga area. “I just couldn’t take it down there,” he says now.
The following year, he had a stroke that left him largely incapacitated and “for a couple of years, I couldn’t do anything except play music. That’s what saved me, I guess.”
Gradually though, he picked up his old life. He began performing again, and working in his store. And in 1980, he decided to start selling golf paraphernalia along with his musical merchandise.
“There was nobody in town who stocked used gold stuff, so I started stocking it,” he says. “Today, I’ve got thousands of golf clubs and other items here for sale.”
His son, Charlie, has begun selling some of the items on the internet, he says. But the bulk of the buying and selling still occurs in the little store in Rossville.
“It’s a little crowded, I guess,” Mr. Chambers says. “But we like it.”