Chandler recognized with IBMA award

Oct. 24—ROMP fans have seen Steve Chandler sitting behind the soundboard making sure acts like the Del McCoury Band and Bruce Hornsby & The Noisemakers sound nothing short of exquisite for thousands of attendees.

In September, the Owensboro native and Nashville sound engineer was recognized for the work he's had a passion for over 40 years when he was named Sound Engineer of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association's 2022 IBMA Industry Awards.

According to an IBMA press release, the 2022 IBMA Industry Awards, sponsored by the California Bluegrass Association, recognizes outstanding work in categories including Broadcaster of the Year; Event of the Year; Graphic Designer of the Year; Liner Notes of the Year; Writer of the Year; Sound Engineer of the Year and Songwriter of the Year.

Chandler said the recognition was surprising, but "surprises are good, too."

"My appreciation is (overwhelming)," he said. "The fact that when you win an award from your peers, that means a lot in itself, and it's an organization that I've been involved with for a long time, ever since it was in Owensboro.

"It's quite an honor. I'm just really humbled and overwhelmed by it."

Chandler was the director of entertainment at the former Executive Inn and booked all the artists that came through — which included country names like Blake Shelton, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban and even rock entities like The Black Crowes and .38 Special.

"That worked pretty good because ... they hired me to do that basically because I actually worked with a lot of the artists that came up there at one place, one time or another in the recording side of my career — which is kind of the dominant side of my career," he said. "...It was a lot of fun. I always enjoyed and loved that kind of stuff, being able to come to Owensboro."

Throughout his career in recording, Chandler has worked in a number of studios, ranging from Columbia, Hilltop Studios, RCA Studios and Starstruck Studios, and has recorded bluegrass and country artists that include Alison Krauss, Dolly Parton, Marty Stuart, Merle Haggard, Ricky Skaggs and Vince Gill, to name a few.

"It's part of the freelance work," he said. "Wherever the producers and artists want to go, they just tell me. Some of them even have great studios in their homes."

With bluegrass music, Chandler said the technique of getting the right sound is different from recording other genres.

"Bluegrass music is a performance music," he said. "...People have asked me about, 'What is the most challenging stuff to record?' I'll be perfectly honest with you — the acoustical music, the bluegrass music — is more challenging than anything because ... you have these people with these $20,000 to $30,000 guitars (and) these great instruments and you love the tones of those instruments. When I go out to, say, record a bluegrass record, I'll sit in front of the guitar player for a while and hear him play — just right in front of it — because that's the tone that he wants on his record.

"The challenge is to capture that tone in its actual atmosphere, I guess you can say."

When Chandler records bluegrass music, he said he never inserts an equalizer and has the music be "totally acoustic, right down to that microphone."

"I cut it as flat as I can with a good mic, and then I hear that mic all the way to post (production)," he said. "If I want to change anything, that's the time to do it. But, generally — my goal is to capture that particular tone of the banjo, or guitar or mandolin."

And the recording process can appear more like the acts and artists performing a live show as opposed to coming off like a session where they're "piecing it together one track at a time," which helps capture both the feeling and authentic performance factor that he terms the "magic" that can be heard.

"You don't have to know a lot about music, but everybody will recognize a good performance," he said.

Chandler also makes sure to save every take and points out one instance when he was recording with the late Haggard on the song "Learning to Live With Myself."

"When he would stand up and start singing, you know he'd be into it, and we'd put it down," he said. "Fast forward, I go out to California to his house to do his vocals ... and we were working on that particular song, and he sung it two or three times, and I said, 'Merle, you're not even as close to the one where you put it down at the studio with the band. He says, 'Great. Use that one. That's the one I want.' "

Chandler said he has been doing studio work "most of my adult life" and has no plans to call it quits anytime soon.

"I just got out of the studio today," he said Wednesday. "I'm in there just about every day, and I consider myself retired, (but) I still love that work and working with entertainers and artists and writers.

"I stay as busy as I want to be with that."