MIKE CHAPMAN

Instruments: Bass Guitar
Date of Birth: July 22, 1952
Place of Birth: Athens, Alabama

Mike Chapman is from Athens, Alabama, and started his way up in nightclubs in nearby Huntsville. He received his first guitar at the tender age of twelve, and was playing in local rock and roll bands by the time he was in college. He worked his way through college while playing.

Mike Chapman finished college with a degree in business administration but kept playing in clubs around the area. Finally he got to a point where he felt he was at the top end of the club scene in Huntsville, and in 1978 found himself between jobs. Hank Williams Jr.'s manager heard of Mike=s talents and asked him to join his band. Chapman left the Hank Jr. touring group after several months of work and returned to his native Alabama

Chapman heard from Milton Sledge, a drummer, who had recently landed a job with a man in Muscle Shoals, Alabama who had access to a recording studio. The fellow invited the two to use the studio to record demos and gain studio experience, but told the duo they wouldn't be paid for their work. Chapman and Sledge went ahead and played in the studio on demos purely for the experience it afforded, and through the studio owners, they met more and more people who would refer them to someone else, and so on.

A few of the people they worked with got publishing deals in Nashville and would ask them to make the trip to continue to play sessions. In Nashville, Chapman and Sledge experienced the same inverse triangle of meetings as in Alabama, and eventually their names were well?known in the studio business.

The trips became so frequent that the bassist moved to Nashville, where he would continue to play demos and work with people who had record deals. From there, Chapman's life just became complex and incredibly busy. One day a young man came in to do a demo and introduced himself as Garth Brooks. As this incredible singer gained in popularity, Chapman would honor requests to play on Garth's demos. In the meantime, he was also playing Kathy Mattea sessions, and working for Johnny Slate, a publisher who had a demo singer named Joe Diffie. Chapman found himself working nonstop for Garth, Kathy, Joe, and other publishers. When Garth got his record deal, he requested that Chapman continue to play for the recording sessions.

Over the years Chapman has performed live with Hank Williams, Jr., Delbert McClinton, Levon Helm, Garth Brooks, K.T. Oslin, Waylon Jennings and others. In the recording studio his bass can be heard on the works of Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, Percy Sledge, Vern Gosden, Mel Tillis, Joe Diffie, Brooks & Dunn, Martina McBride, George Jones, Sammy Kershaw, Leann Rimes and many others.