Introducing Chip McCain!

Chip was born fully sighted and spent his early years in Tampa, Florida. At the age of 9, Chip was involved in a gun shooting accident that left him totally blind. For one year he attended school at the Alabama School for the Blind in Talladega, then was mainstreamed and transferred to Barrett Elementary in Birmingham. He later went to high school in Springville Alabama and then the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham. His involvement with music began in the elementary school band. Chip was lucky enough to connect with some exceptional teachers that fueled his desire to play music and later led to his career as a professional musician.

Chip began playing in local Birmingham area bands in the mid 70’s and went full-time in 1981. Throughout his music career he have had the good fortune to work with some of the top local, regional and national acts in music. This allowed him to hone his experience and skill set to a highly professional level. Eventually he used that experience and those skills to become one of the most successful single acts in the Southeast.

In 1981 Chip joined The Wayne Hand Band as a Sound and Lighting Engineer. He remained in this position until 1983. In 1983 he took his place on stage as a keyboard/piano player for Charter Oak, A Southeastern regional Top 40 show band, where he remained until late 1984. Through the rest of the 80s he traveled extensively and continued to build his experience and skills while working with several regional bands as a keyboardist. During this time he completed two Mid-West tours, two East-Coast Tours, a USO tour and played more venues than he can ever remember. In 1988 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee where he became the keyboardist/piano player for a newly sign Country Music act named Dixie Grey. Never quite able to break into the charts, Dixie Grey was dropped by its label, and the group disbanded in early late 1989.

Chip spent the first half of the 90s bouncing around Nashville picking up work where he found it. he spent 1990-92 working mornings writing radio jingles and recording piano and keyboards on demo sessions at different recording studios around Nashville and then spending his afternoons and evenings playing piano for Evangeline Made, a show band at Opryland USA theme park. In 1993 he was chosen to play piano for newly signed artist, Marty Brown, where he played piano during his 1993 national tour.

After this tour, he spent the next two years as a substitute piano player, touring with different national recording artist whose primary piano player needed a short term replacement for one reason or another. During this time he had the pleasure to share the stage with such recording artists such as Travis Tritt, Porter Wagoner, Conway Twitty, Reba McEntire and others. Having grown weary of life on the road and searching for more stability, in 1996 he returned to Birmingham and pursue a career as a single act.

Wanting to accomplish more than the traditional piano player in a piano lounge, Chip set out to create his own style and unique sounding show. One of the first soloist in Birmingham to embrace computers and newly emerging technologies, Chip built a small home studio and began the task of recording his own high quality backing tracks. This allowed him to produce the sound of a full size band while performing as a single act. In 1996 until 1999, I became the staff musician and Manager of Entertainment for Norm’s, which was Birmingham’s largest late night hot spot. My duties included performing nightly in the front lounge and booking entertainment for the larger 300 seat music and party room.

In December of 1999 Chip moved across town and took the position of house entertainer at Sarris’ Seafood and Steakhouse where he played four nights a week until 2006. In early 2000 a popular restaurant chain called Bahama Breeze opened their Birmingham location and Chip was hired on as one of several staff entertainers. He played three nights a week there until 2004. In early 2006 he was hired as Director of Entertainment for The Olive Drop II, a martini restaurant and lounge located on Santa Rosa Island Florida, where he spent the next two years performing his single act Sunday through Wednesday and booking show bands to perform Thursday through Saturday. Returning to Birmingham in late 2008, Chip began rotating through the different live music venues throughout North Central Alabama. In 2011 through 2016, while continuing to play different venues through the week, Chip and his wife Tracy became the weekend Karaoke Host at Even Odds Restaurant and Lounge in Pell City Alabama.

In late 2016, Chip and Tracy purchased an art and pottery studio in Blue Ridge Georgia. While Chip’s main focus was the new business, he continued to book live shows, private parties and karaoke in local establishments. This continued till mid 2020 when the Covid pandemic and non-essential business shut down caused them to lose their art studio.

Chip isn’t all about music though. At the age of sixteen he worked for and received his Professional Radio Announcer’s License from the
FCC (Federal Communications Commission), at seventeen Attended Piano Tech classes at E. H. Gentry Technical Facility, and in 1993 attended Computer Science courses at Bessemer State Technical College. He also holds completed certificates in Business Administration, Sales and Business Management, Small Computer Information Interfacing and Networking, Bed & Breakfast Management, and is an Ordained Minister and licensed Wedding Officiate. He has also been a business owner over the years. Some of his ventures have included operating a commercial cleaning service, being a restaurant and lounge owner, running a PC networking and service company, and operating a web hosting service.

Chip has also tried to give back to the community in which he lives. Regularly donating his time to perform for non-profit events, he has performed many shows over the years for the different VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) posts in the area to help raise funds for different occasions, often playing Thanksgiving and Christmas shows for the Blinded Vets from the Veterans Hospital’s Southeastern Blind Rehabilitation Center. He has provided free web hosting and web master services to the Southeastern Blind Rehabilitation Center Alumni Association, has participated in the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Stars Behind Bars fund Raiser and much more. He also donates a large part of his time providing free computer tech support to other blind Alabamians.

Chip and Tracy now lives in Social Circle Georgia with their two totally spoiled dogs, (Roux and Honey.) He regularly performs his nightclub act in local restaurants and lounges, and spends a good part of his day in his recording studio writing, recording and listening to music.