Joe Frank Chambers

Joseph Frank Chambers (July 27, 1954 – September 28, 2022) was an American musician, songwriter, record producer, A&R executive, musical stores entrepreneur, and co-founder and CEO of the Musician's Hall of Fame and Museum (MHOFM) in Nashville, Tennessee.

In 1978 at Nashville, TN Joe met songwriter, producer, and Epic Records President Billy Sherrill. Sherrill became Chambers' mentor for songwriting, record producing, and artists and repertoire (A&R) at CBS Records. Sherrill passed on his knowledge and experience to Joe. Chambers wrote songs that were recorded by famous Country singers including several that were hit songs. Sherrill let Joe shadow him during many record producing projects. Through this mentoring, Chambers met and made friends with some of the great session musicians in Nashville. In 1985 Chambers opened a small chain of music stores in the Nashville area. Later Joe bought and sold vintage guitars for famous musicians. In November 2003, Joe and his wife Linda co-founded the future Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum. After two and half years of renovating, it opened to the public in June 2006. The band won the local Jaycees-Sponsored Battle of the Bands in his senior year in high school, and went on to win first place at the Nationals Battle of the Bands in September 1973. Chambers started writing songs at this time. The band continued to play around Georgia and nearby states.

The band occasionally visited the keyboard player's uncle who managed country singer Conway Twitty. Twitty was good friends with Dick Clark, and the band hoped Clark could be a path to a rock and roll career. Around 1976 Twitty offered to oversee the band recording a demo tape in Oklahoma City, Twitty's home at the time. Twitty then sent Clark the demo. Clark listened to the tape and chose one song as the best. That song was written by Chambers (music and lyrics) and this gave him confidence to continue writing. In 1978 the band recorded another demo in Atlanta. Chambers and two other band members took the demo to Music Row. They stopped at CBS Records and by chance encounter in the lobby, met Billy Sherrill who was president of Epic Records (a unit of CBS). Chambers did not realize at the time how influential Sherrill was, but Joe asked him to listen to the demo. Sherrill agreed on the spot and invited the three musicians to his office. Sherrill liked the demo and, in a week, the whole band was in Nashville recording with CBS. This meeting and connection with Sherrill changed Chambers' life. Billy Sherrill and Conway Twitty looked after Chambers and helped him.

1978–1985 Songwriter and producer Sherrill mentored Chambers and passed on his experience and expertise in the recording studio. Joe entered the vintage guitar market and met and made friends with famous musicians. 11] According to Chambers "In 2012 Brian called me one day and said 'I'm done with the trailer.' so I bought it for the Museum. Luckily the Historic Nashville Municipal Auditorium had high ceilings enough, with the air out of the tires. We built walls around it and got the exhibit open for the public around 2018. It is a permanent exhibition in the Museum."

Joe typically travelled to meet the musicians in many places throughout the country during the renovation of the original Museum building. After the original location opened in June 2006, musicians would come into the MHOFM and Chambers would interview them there until the original building was forced to close due to eminent domain. During the construction of the current Museum building Joe would travel to continue interviewing great musicians until the new MHOFM opened in August, 2013.

Recent Multi-Camera Interviews - The Musicians Hall of Fame Backstage Series 2019-2022 The recent interview format involved three cameras, a designated recording booth on the Front Stage of the reopened MHOFM (located on the first floor of the historic Nashville Municipal Auditorium), and an artistic backdrop consisting of about 300 guitars attached to the big curved wall. Production of the Backstage Series interviews started at the reopened MHOFM early 2016. Interviews were generally 30 min, or 60 min that are frequently split into part 1 and part 2 each 30 min long. Joe interacted on-camera with the musicians to ask questions, and often shared common memories and other stories with the interviewed musicians.

"When Covid 19 came in, nobody wanted to do any interviews sitting across from somebody. We were really rolling well when we had to stop. One day Don McLean's manager called and he would like to be on a show. I said if you are up for it, I am sick of sitting at home, too. This was before either of us had shots and we he came in and we did an interview (September 19, 2020), and then one of my favorite people, Vince Gill, came in and we did an interview (November 7, 2020). Then Emmylou Harris, Greta Van Fleet, and Joe Bonamassa, and that kind of started it all back again." Joe Chambers continued to interview great musicians until May 3, 21.

All Interviews Videos Prepared for YouTube for all People Around the World One of the most important goals of the Backstage interviews was to let people know where the reopened MHOFM is located. Chambers "aired [MHOFM Backstage interviews] on the local [Nashville] TV station; Newschannel 5+, the digital channel." Backstage shows first aired in June 2019. "[We] noticed that they were airing the shows on their YouTube channel and they were getting a lot of views. So, we put our Backstage shows on the Museum YouTube channel. We got more than 91,000 subscribers and almost 13M views (while YouTube view counts are not considered accurate, they can provide a sense of the popularity or reach of a video) in the last 15 months [March, 2020 through June, 2021]. More people know about the Museum now than they ever have all around the world."

Personal life Joe married Linda Woods on September 13, 1980. Joe Chambers died on September 28, 2022, at Vanderbilt Hospital following an extended illness.