Richard Hyatt: He made sure studio musicians have their own hall

Classmates at Gentian Elementary School were learning to spell while Joe Chambers was listening to the Beatles and the Beach Boys. His father gave him a transistor radio and he ran the cord to the earphone down his sleeve so he could listen to music.

"That's why I can't spell," he says.

Music is another matter. He played lead guitar in a rock band. He wrote songs for George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Randy Travis, Conway Twitty and Ricky Van Shelton. He owned a chain of guitar stores around Nashville.

Now he operates the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville, which honors the pickers and players who serve the songs and the singers.

For him, it started when he was 14. He and his friends formed a band known as the Soul Proprietors, an eight-piece group with a horn section that could blow the roof off of a school auditorium.

Moving to the college circuit, people thought they were booking black musicians because of their name and their song list.

"When we'd show up at a fraternity house, they'd ask where are all the black guys? 'We are,' we'd tell them."

The local group won the national Battle of the Bands in 1972 and doors began to open for Chambers. Not because of his guitar, but because of his potential as a songwriter.

He moved to Nashville in 1979 and for someone who grew up on rock it was like being dropped on another planet. But a year after he became immersed in country music, one of his songs ended up on a Johnny Paycheck album.

Through the retail business he met the studio musicians that are the heart of the recording business. That inspired him to create the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2006. It has become a major attraction with more big things on the horizon.

Inductees aren't well known, but their music is. If you saw "Forrest Gump," you know Duane Eddy. When Forrest started to run and his braces fell off, the twangy music in the background was Eddy's "Rebel Rouser."

Despite some struggles, Chambers remains true to his dream.

"If you want to see the faces on the album covers, we're not your museum. We inducted Glen Campbell -- not for 'Rhinestone Cowboy,' but because of his work as a studio musician in Los Angeles."

Richard Hyatt is an independent correspondent. Reach him at hyatt31906 @knology.net.

This story was originally published March 21, 2015 at 6:50 PM with the headline "Richard Hyatt: He made sure studio musicians have their own hall."