Louis F. ‘Chip’ Davis Jr.

Born the son of a public high school music teacher and a musical mother, it only seemed natural that Louis “Chip” Davis Jr. would become a prolific songwriter and musician. But even his parents probably couldn’t have imagined the enormous impact their son would eventually have on the world of music and beyond. Davis was born in Sylvania in 1947, and his grandmother began teaching him to play piano four years later. He eventually ended up a student in his dad’s music class at Sylvania City’s Sylvania Northview High School. “Life Lesson: Don’t mess around with my dad in choir class or any other time,” Davis said. “I enjoyed high school, including my first real crush. I was thrilled when Sylvania had a Chip Davis recognition day, including naming a street by the high school Chip Davis Way. I’ve never forgotten the values of my Midwest community roots and the importance of family.” Davis graduated in 1965, and then earned a degree from the University of Michigan before taking a job as a jingle writer for an advertising agency. While there, he and executive Bill Fries dreamed up a fictional truck driver named C.W. McCall for a series of commercials for the Old Home Bread Co. The television commercials were so popular that Davis and Fries produced recordings under the name of C.W. McCall. One of the songs, “Convoy,” helped fuel the popular CB radio craze of the 1970s. Within two months, 10 million records were sold, and a movie with the same name was later released. Davis then recorded an album called Fresh Aire, which he dubbed “18th Century Classical Rock.” As a one-man-band, he released the album under the name Mannheim Steamroller, based on a musical term referring to a crescendo. But when the record industry passed on his new sound, he launched his own record label named American Gramaphone to distribute the album. American Gramaphone is now one of the nation’s largest independent record labels. Davis and his Mannheim Steamroller bandmates went on to become the No. 1 Christmas music artists in history and he is largely credited with creating the new age music genre. Today, The Christmas Music of Mannheim Steamroller by Chip Davis is the 31st year of its annual tour and is still playing to sold-out audiences. He is also the author of five children’s books, has a line of food and bath products, and invented a music therapy system used in medical facilities where traumatic brain injuries are treated. Davis now lives on a 150-acre farm in Omaha, Neb., with nine horses, a pet turkey, pet ducks and two timber wolves. He has three children who are all, of course, musically inclined. In his living room sits the piano on which his grandmother first taught him how to play.