Chas Sandford
Nashville, Tennessee, United States | SELF
Music
Press
“I love this album; ‘Broken’ (track five) is a beautiful ballad that just keeps building with every note driven by powerhouse vocals. Great harmonies on ‘My Favorite Regret’ and he brings it on home with ‘Waiting For the Sun.’”
-- Amanda Andrews, NASHVILLEMUSICGUIDE.NET, February 7, 2011
- NASHVILLE MUSIC GUIDE.NET
“It has all the markings of a classic.”
-- William Simpson, STAGESHOTZZ.COM, January 31, 2011
- STAGE SHOTZZ.COM
“With ‘Wag More Bark Less,’ Chas Sandford proves that he is able to co-write, record, produce and mix a solid sophomore album. Sandford is able to sing these twelve songs about loss, love and his life experiences, with much passion and conviction. This album is recommended for listeners of pop, rock and adult contemporary music, as well as country music fans.”
-- Markos Papadatos, SUITE101.COM, January 16, 2011
- SUITE 101.COM
“The Tennessee-based artist pens tunes that draw from rock, country, and pop, while existing in a sphere that's decidedly his own. The hooks are there, but there's a lot of heart hidden within each chord, verse, and lyric on Sandford's sophomore offering, Wag More Bark Less. Yet, there's nothing like hearing Chas sing and play his own material on Wag More Bark Less…”
-- Rick Florino, ARTIST DIRECT.COM, January 18, 2011
- ARTIST DIRECT.COM
“…he has the respect of fellow songwriters and his talents are sought after commodities in the world of music…His dedication and feelings come across loud and clear in his latest effort titled Wag More Bark Less. The music has a Don Henley feel mixed with classic rock and modern country leanings.”
? Jeb Wright, CLASSIC ROCK REVISITED.COM, February 2011
- CLASSIC ROCK REVISITED.COM
“’Wag More, Bark Less,’ is filled with fantastic songs about heartache, longing and sorrow over painful memories of love lost.”
-- Dana Feldman, EXAMINER.COM, December 17, 2010
- LA EXAMINER.COM
"Sandford weaves strong words into masterful lyrics about love, loss, hurt and pain and the emotional expression along with his strong, raspy, sexy voice, brings every song on the album to life. I love the different instrumentation on the different songs-no two alike on this album. Thanks Chas for some great music!"
--Amanda Johnson, DIGITALRODEO.COM, January 10, 2011
- DIGITAL RODEO.COM
"You might not know the name of Georgia native Chas Sandford, but you know his songs for sure. His pen has been behind such pop classics as ‘Missing You,’ ‘What Kind Of Man Would I Be,
’ and ‘Talk To Me.’ Now, he gives the other side of the song a try, with this excellent album. From the opening notes of ‘Let Love Back In This House’ all the way through to the end of the album, Sandford proves himself to be a singer worthy of any song that might come from his pen. He also comes across as very versatile, with a style that ranges from Pop to Rock, with a little bit of Country sprinkled in. Rather than single out a few cuts here, and tell you that they are highlights, I will tell you up front that each track could be a highlight. There are no clunkers here. Some of my favorite cuts are ‘The Best Of Times,’ ‘Broken,’ and the ballad showcase ‘I Believed,’ where his vocal performance brings to mind Larry Stewart of Restless Heart. While each cut is impressive on its’ own merits, I wouldn’t rule out his getting some attention for the biting ‘Love Can Really Mess You Up.’ It’s one of those type performances that can really send an artist into the stratosphere----a place where he Chas Sandford truly deserves to be!"
-- Chuck Dauphin, MUSICNEWSNASHVILLE.COM, January 10, 2011
- MUSIC NEWS NASHVILLE.COM
“Sandford co-wrote one of my all-time favorite pop hits, John Waite's ‘Missing You."’ (OK, Brooks & Dunn did a good version, too.) I can sense that same emotional and musical undercurrent in ‘I'll Be There’ [from his new album]. In this song, he's asking his beloved to find comfort and faith in their partnership. With the right artist, this could be a huge country hit.”
--Craig Shelburne, CMT.COM, February 22, 2011
- CMT.COM
“…Wag More, Bark Less, a collection so full of hits one would swear Tim McGraw had been recording again. The CD leads with a surefire hit, the anthemic: ‘Let Love Back in This House,’ and then keeps getting better. This is one of the most major independent releases I’ve ever heard.”
-- Tom Kidd, MUSIC CONNECTION, February, 2011
- MUSIC CONNECTION
"This veteran producer/songwriter proves his performing chops with a deeply felt, autobiographical set of songs that any fan of the Eagles, Crosby, Stills and Nash or Jackson Browne will surely appreciate, with the added thrill of discovering a brand-new artist."
-- Roy Trakin, HITS MAGAZINE, January 2011
- HITS MAGAZINE
Discography
Occupation:
Singer, songwriter, producer, engineer, artist, studio owner, publisher
Company Name:
Secret Sound & Hanalei Music Group, Inc.
About Me:
As a hit songwriter and publisher, Sandford is the recipient of twelve ASCAP "Most Performed Songs" awards, including John Waite's "Missing You," Chicago's "What Kind of Man Would I Be" and Stevie Nicks' "Talk To Me." His songs have also been recorded by Tina Turner, Rod Stewart, Melanie, Roger Daltrey, Berlin, Millie Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Alison Krauss, Rick Springfield, Sammy Hagar, Jimmy Barnes, Don Johnson, David Wilcox, Tyler Hilton, Sheila B. Devotion and others.
Chas is now a BMI writer/publisher.
The most recent check of airplay for "Missing You" was almost 7,000,000 documented plays, making it one of the most played songs of all time.
As a producer, Chas has worked with Chicago, Stevie Nicks, Rod Stewart, Roger Daltrey, Berlin, Willie Nelson, Ron Wood, Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Gene Loves Jezebel, Jimmy Barnes, Dan Hill, Gina Schock, Don Johnson and others.
Live highlights include opening for The Eagles on their "Hotel California" European tour, appearing in and recording live in the Robert Altman film, "A Perfect Couple" (including a show at the Hollywood Bowl with the L.A. Philharmonic); two months on Broadway in "Divine Madness" with Bette Midler (appearing in the film of the same name); and playing with the late, great James Brown for a charity show in Augusta, Georgia.
Chas Sandford also owns Secret Sound a world class recording facility.
Artists who have worked at Secret Sound include:
Chuck Ainlay, Chris Lord Alge, Bad English, Jimmy Barnes, Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Berlin, Sandra Bernhardt, John Berry, Suzy Bogguss, Bonepony, Jimmy Bowen, Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, Tony Brown, Tracy Byrd, Shawn Camp, Belinda Carlisle, CNN, Lionel Cartwright, Gary Chapman, Tracy Chapman, Chicago, Toni Childs, Bob Clearmountian, Clarence Clemons, Joe Cocker, Paula Cole, Shawn Colvin, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Michael Crawford, Billy Ray Cyrus, Roger Daltrey, Bo Diddly, Celine Dion, Def Leppard, DC Talk, Billy Dean, Divinyls, Deep Purple, Melissa Etheridge, Lita Ford, Gene Loves Jezebel, Amy Grant, Nanci Griffith, Mick Gazauski, Levon Helm, Dan Hill, Faith Hill, The Iguanas, Jimmy Iovine, Jars of Clay, Don Johnson, Nick Kershaw, KISS, K.D. Lang, Mutt Lange, Tracy Lawrence, Steve Lillywhite, Steve Lipson, Nils Lofgren, Madonna, Cheech Marin, Mary's Danish, Richard Marx, Terry McBride & The Ride, Michael McDonald, Tim McGraw, Joni Mitchell, Lorrie Morgan, David Lee Murphy, Willie Nelson, Aaron Neville, Harry Nilsson, Jeffrey Osbourne, Dolly Parton, Public Enemy LTD, Queen, The Rembrandts, Restless Heart, Gina Schock, Ricky Van Shelton, Mike Shipley, Judson Spence, Dave Stewart, Rod Stewart, Keith Sweat, Russ Taft, Take 6, Tony! Toni! Tone!, Travis Tritt, Tanya Tucker, Tina Turner, Shania Twain, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, John Waite, Steve Wariner, WASP, Kevin Welsh, Winger, Peter Wolf, Ron Wood, Michelle Wright, Wynonna, Trisha Yearwood & Dweezil Zappa.
Photos
Bio
CHAS SANDFORD
“We lived the good times/Now we feel the pain/Wonder if those days/Will ever come again… The past is the past/What’s done is done/Time to let go/Time to move on.” “It’s Changing”
The saying goes that most artists have an entire lifetime to make their first album, and six months to come up with the second. For veteran artist/songwriter/producer/ engineer/ guitarist Chas Sandford, it took over two decades for his sophomore album, Wag More, Bark Less, the long-awaited follow up to his debut Parallax View, which came out on Elektra/Asylum.
That album included songs that were soon covered by John Waite, Sammy Hagar, Rick Springfield and Sheila B. Devotion. When three of the songs he was writing for a planned second album turned into a #1 hit for Waite (“Missing You”) and Top 5 singles for both Stevie Nicks (“Talk to Me”) and Chicago (“What Kind of Man Would I Be”), Sandford found himself one of the most in-demand producer/songwriters in the business, his songs recorded by a list that includes Tina Turner, Rod Stewart, Melanie, Roger Daltrey, Millie Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Alison Krauss and David Wilcox, often producing as well in his own Secret Sound studio. He has also produced a wide range of artists, including Chicago, Stevie Nicks, Roger Daltrey, Rod Stewart, Berlin, Gene Loves Jezebel, House of Schock and Don Johnson, whose cast of guest musicians included Willie Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bonnie Raitt , Ron Wood and Dickey Betts.
Now living in Franklin, TN, outside Nashville, the Atlanta-born Sandford has enlisted an all star line-up of the city’s best musicians for the album, anchored by bassist Davis Santos [Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, John Fogerty, Billy Joel, Elton John, Phoebe Snow, James Taylor] and drummer Nick Buda [Taylor Swift, Jewel, Edwin McCain, Mindy Smith, Randy Houser], with cameos by friends and colleagues including Chicago’s Bill Champlin and James Matchack, Survivor’s Jim Peterik, recording artist/slide guitarist Lee Roy Parnell and singer/songwriter Nicole Witt on background vocals.
“It was just too frustrating to think of being one of 10,000 guys trying to get a cover on a Rascal Flatts album,” he says about his decision to record his own music. “Everything is so upside-down in the business anyway—as hard as it’s ever been—so I might as well do something I really wanted to do, and see what happens. My best successes have always come when I’m doing my own thing.”
Wag More, Bark Less is “about being happier, rather than in conflict all the time,” explains Sandford, who wrote the songs over the past two years after his divorce and a follow up romance went awry. “Let Love Back in This House” has a folk-rock jangle that evokes the likes of the Eagles, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Fleetwood Mac, in its tale of longing and sorrow amid ghostly memories. “”My friends keep saying just move on/But I think of you in every song.”
“I originally wrote that with Little Big Town and/or Fleetwood Mac in mind,” says Sandford. “But when nobody pulled the trigger that’s when I decided to do it myself.”
It was the beginning of an outpouring of material that eventually became a cathartic album that helped Sandford get the past few years off his chest. “The Best of Times,” “Someday Susan,” “I Believed,” “Broken” and “My Favorite Regret” look back with a combination of disappointment, disbelief and a desire to move on. Sandford proves he can rock out pretty damn good also with the “Witchy Woman”-meets-Led Zeppelin “Waiting for the Sun,” the tongue-in-cheek rock of “Love Can Really Mess You Up” (“One day I wanna marry you/Next day I wanna bury you/What the hell am I gonna do?) and the soaring, Springsteen-esque socio-political “It’s Changing” bring the album’s sentiments full circle, from feeling sorry for oneself to getting out and doing something about it. On the other hand, the affecting “Let Love Back in This House,” “Whenever I See You Smile” and the soaring set-piece “Because of You” (written with Tyrone Noonan from the Australian band George) all show that Sandford’s optimism hasn’t been snuffed completely.
About the events leading up to the album Sandford says, “There were a great many emotions swirling around. So, the record’s pretty personal. As we all know, the more real, the better. There are a lot of raw nerve endings hanging out. The songs flowed out pretty easy.”
Wag More, Bark Less is the culmination of a career that began when Sandford ran off to Los Angeles at 15 years old. When the self-declared teenage guitar slinger, case in hand, met Ike Turner, resplendent in leopard skin bathrobe and shades, in an Inglewood alley in back of his own studio, the legendary musician invited him to a recording session with Ike & Tina and Delaney & Bonnie later that night, and Chas never looked back. He opened for The Eagles on the European leg of their Hotel California tour, then played in a band he put together with future A&R exec Tony Berg who played themselves
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