bio
Fred Chester is a singer, songwriter, and lead guitarist. Born and raised in Jacksonville Florida, he moved to Tallahassee where he worked with FSU Baseball as team manager and received a B.S. degree in advertising design from Florida State University. Early rock bands like Richard’s Weed and Daddy Twofoot drew him into the music business and allowed him a vehicle for perfecting his lead guitar riffs. After college he played solo for several years in folk clubs, while working with Zorch Audio concert sound company.
He soon began working at Norton Music, where he met Burt Norton, who ultimately built Sweetbay Recording Studios. While working as a session musician there he began learning the art of recording and recorded many of his own compositions during studio down time. This was the beginning of what turned into a career as a recording engineer / producer. He did early demos for Billy Dean, Gamble Rogers, and BB Jam to name a few. After recording and co-producing albums for Labamba and Flipside among many others, he became lead guitarist for the latter.
After Sweetbay closed he became chief engineer at Flamingo Studios for 6 years, engineering regional acts like Eli, Babe’ Blu, and Foghat. As a mix engineer he has mixed live sound shows for Ray Charles, Judy Collins, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Bo Diddley, Garrison Keillor, and countless others. In 1985-1986 he recorded the on location sound of "The Feelies" for the Jonathan Demme movie "Something Wild" and played guitar for Chuck Berry at FSU's annual homecoming concert. Over the years he has opened up for acts like Lynyrd Skynyrd, Mothers Finest, Chuck Mangione and others.
From 1991 to 1994 he was one of 4 staff audio engineers for Interlight International which was an organization creating research and development of compact disc interactive (CD-I) technology for Sony/Philips and Samsung in the area of children's interactive bible stories producing sound designed stories, songs, games, and graphics delivered on CD-I discs in multiple languages.
From 1994 to 2014 he was chief engineer at ESP Studios, recorded demos for Mayday Parade, and many other regional acts. As an independent engineer he has assisted on jazz recording sessions and live shows for Cyrus Chestnut, Wynton Marsailis and over 10 albums for world class jazz pianist Marcus Roberts and the Marcus Roberts Trio, the latest being a collaborative effort featuring the Marcus Roberts Trio and Bela Fleck. Playing lead guitar for the songwriter danceband Harvest Gypsies for over 12+ years was his passion until the band dissolved in 2014. Currently he is doing session work and engineering/producing in his home studio (Ready Freddy Recording Services) for multiple regional projects.
