Sam Chappell's Blog - Nashville, TN

Ted T. is a well known producer in Christian music. He has worked with a number of artists and produced people like Rebecca St James and Britt Nicole. Recently he worked with For King and Country. Ironically, Ted and I had not worked together all these years even though we are both in the Christian music industry.  I began consulting a couple of clients that needed a producer so I reached out to Ted. Ted had me over to the studio to listen to some of his songs and we became friends in the process. Ted ended up working with my clients who were a worship band that traveled with Joyce Meyer. They had written a few songs and a couple of albums, but their production needed help and Ted became their producer. 

Sam Chappell & Matt Redman I heard of Matt Redman when I was President of Integrity Music. Integrity was a worship label and I got to know a lot of worship artists. Matt is somebody I always wanted to work with but he was signed to another label. A few years ago, a producer by the name of Rob Marvin, who was the producer for Mat Kearney, said, “Sam, I'd really love you to meet a guy named Matt Redman.” I said, “I've been wanting to meet him for years!”   I had some business in southern California and Matt lives in Orange County. So Robert introduced us and Matt and I struck up a friendship. It's probably a three or four year old friendship now. Every time I go to Orange County, I have coffee with him. I have a very high regard for Matt. He is a great father, very humble, and a great worship leader. He's a family man. He lives a Christ centered life. 

This is me with Tauren Wells.  When I was managing Andy Mineo, we needed a male vocalist for one of Andy’s projects and Andy loved Tauren’s voice. Tauren actually knew of me because we had some mutual artist friends, but we didn’t meet each other until this project with Andy. Tauren used to be in a Grammy-Nominated band called Royal Tailor. He is a solo artist now and I was told he always wanted to meet me. Tauren is a super talented singer and wonderful guy with a lot of character. It matches his musical gift. This picture was actually taken in Mobile, Alabama at a studio. Andy invited Tauren to go on tour with him, and while we were touring, Andy wanted to record this song with Tauren. We were going to Mobile, Alabama on a tour stop and Any needed a studio. I knew all the studios in Mobile because of my work with Integrity Music down there. We recorded Tauren’s vocals in that Mobile studio and spent the day working on that song. Tauren is one of the most humble guys you'

I was the manager for GRITS early on in their career. They were signed to Gotee records and their song “Ooh Ahh (My Life Be Like)” was the first certified platinum record that Gotee ever had. It just got certified in the last couple months of 2018. I was managing the group when all that music happened, but it took years to certify platinum. GRITS is one of the first artists Gotee ever signed and they were some of the early producers of Christian hip-hop. That song was a huge song for them and it’s awesome that it just got commemorated officially. This is me with Joey Elwood who is President of Gotee Records and cofounder with Toby Mac. Joey presented me with the platinum record at the Gotee office in Nashville. Joey’s been a friend of mine for a long time. We were even roommates for a while. We’ve been friends for probably 25 years. 

I’ve known Otto Price since the late nineties, so a little over 20 years. He used to be the bass player for DC Talk. Then when I was one of the Vice Presidents at Gotee Records, we signed a band called Zilch, and Zilch turned into Sonic Flood and Otto was their bass player. Otto was a true artist and when he left the band, he went on to become a producer. This picture was taken at Pinewood Social in Nashville, TN. He walked by and saw me and we took our picture and got to catch up with each other. Otto remains a friend. He is very well known as a producer, and he used to be an A&R guy at Word Records.

In this picture we are in Cupertino, California at Facebook’s headquarters. Lecrae, on the left, was launching a new album and we were going out there to raise media support. Andy Mineo was about to release a record too. So here we have Lecrae from Atlanta, Andy from New York, Sam from Nashville, and we’re in Cupertino, California. Lecrae is a recording artist who is the owner and cofounder of Reach Records, and Andy Mineo is an artist on Reach Records.  That day we went to the offices for Apple, Facebook, and Instagram and believe me when I say those campuses are huge. Facebook looks like a college campus, and Apple looks like a big tech center. We were there doing interviews with Lecrae and Andy. My company was managing them both at the same time. I started as a consultant to Reach Records and then Reach asked me to form a management company for their hip hop artists. This included Lecrae, Andy Mineo, Trip Lee, and Tedashi. I never thought I’d be in the hip-hop world. I starte