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Happy Chichester | |
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| Origin | Columbus, Ohio, US |
| Genres | Alternative pop |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals, guitar, keyboards, drums |
| Years active | 1985–present |
| Labels | PopFly Music |
| Website | happychichester |
Harold "Happy" Chichester is an American singer-songwriter and musician.
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (July 2017) |
Chichester resides in the Columbus, Ohio, area, where he began making music in 1986. [1]
Happy's first band of note was the 1980s rock/funk group the Royal Crescent Mob in which he played bass. Formed in 1985, the Royal Crescent Mob were renowned for their live performances. They signed a major label deal with Sire Records and released six albums. They toured with The Replacements, The B-52's and others and were once featured in Seventeen magazine. After nine years with the band, Happy left to pursue a solo career. Happy was replaced by Ben Pridgeon, but the band dissolved within a few years. They all remain friends.
Having been friends with Greg Dulli since the days when The Afghan Whigs used to open for the Royal Crescent Mob, Happy has often lent his talents to Greg Dulli's projects The Afghan Whigs and The Twilight Singers. Happy provided vocals, songwriting and various instruments to Afghan Whigs releases Gentlemen (1993) and Black Love (1996).
He was also a founding member of The Twilight Singers. He appears heavily on their first album, Twilight As Played by the Twilight Singers (2000). Happy toured as a keyboardist with both the Afghan Whigs and the Twilight Singers. On Greg Dulli's 2005 solo album Amber Headlights, Happy provided drums to the song "So Tight."
Happy met bassist Jim Rico at Ohio University; they started Howlin' Maggie in January 1994. During the following months, guitarist Andy Harrison, trumpeter Randy Sanders and drummer Jerome Dillon were added to the line up, and in 1995 the band signed a recording deal with Columbia Records, releasing the critically acclaimed[ citation needed ]Honeysuckle Strange on April 9, 1996. The band toured extensively with the Afghan Whigs, but by the late '90s, the original lineup was dissolved.
Chichester bought himself out of his record deal with Columbia Records and his wife, Laura, founded PopFly Records and signed Chichester as her first artist. In 2001, the label released its first CD, Howlin' Maggie's Hyde. Chichester recruited guitarist Lance Ellison, former Royal Crescent Mob drummer Carlton Smith, and bassist Christian Hurd. After two US tours in support of the album, Happy decided to take a solo approach and disbanded Howlin' Maggie. Although they played their last shows in the summer of 2002, [2] Howlin' Maggie reunited for a single show in Columbus, Ohio on November 24, 2010. Proceeds for the show was to benefit a children's charities and memorial fund established after the passing of a local DJ, CD101's Andy "Andyman" Davis.
After Howlin' Maggie, Chichester continued to write songs and play live. In 2002 Shawn Smith invited Happy to support his band Brad on their national tour and open all the shows. The experience was inspiring, and Chichester began to periodically hit the road to see how audiences reacted to his new songs, while spending his days off the road in his studio to record his first solo album.
A performance at the Aladdin Theater in Portland, Oregon, on March 28, 2003 (which was recorded for the price of a pint of beer) became an underground hit. [1] He had recorded and produced a limited, numbered pressing of the show in Portland, copies of which were eventually selling on eBay for $50.[ citation needed ] Eventually, the live album was officially released through PopFly Music.
Lovers Come Back, Happy's first full-length studio solo album, was released by PopFly Music on February 14, 2007. In support of the album, he headed out on an extensive tour of the United States and Europe (while opening for RJD2) to promote the album. He continues to tour and record as a solo artist to a growing and cultish underground following.
The Afghan Whigs are an American rock band from Cincinnati, Ohio. They were active from 1986 to 2001 and have since reformed as a band. The group – with core members Greg Dulli, Rick McCollum, and John Curley (bass) – rose up around the grunge movement, evolving from a garage band in the vein of the Replacements to incorporate more R&B and soul influences into their sound and image. After releasing their first album independently in 1988, the band signed to the Seattle-based label Sub Pop. They released their major-label debut and fourth album, Gentlemen, in 1993. Pitchfork described them as "one of the few alt-bands to flourish on a major label" in the 1990s.
Congregation is the third studio album by American alternative rock band The Afghan Whigs. It was released on January 31, 1992, by Sub Pop and followed two years of the band's touring in support of their first album for the label, Up in It (1990).
Mark William Lanegan was an American singer, songwriter, and poet. First becoming prominent as the lead singer for the early grunge band Screaming Trees, he was also known as a member of Queens of the Stone Age and The Gutter Twins. He released 12 solo studio albums, as well as three collaboration albums with Isobel Campbell and two with Duke Garwood. He was known for his baritone voice, which was described as being "as scratchy as a three-day beard yet as supple and pliable as moccasin leather" and has been compared to Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, and Nick Cave.
The Twilight Singers are an American indie rock band. It was formed in 1997 by Greg Dulli as a side project during a hiatus from his group The Afghan Whigs. After the Afghan Whigs disbanded, Dulli used The Twilight Singers as his own artistic vehicle and has now released five studio albums backed by worldwide tours.
Jerome Dillon is a professional musician, best known for his tenure as drummer with industrial rock group Nine Inch Nails from 1999–2005. After his departure, his own project, Nearly, released its debut album reminder in December 2005, along with a cd maxi-single for the song "Straight to Nowhere". "All is Lost", a song from reminder that Dillon co-wrote with 12 Rounds singer, Claudia Sarne, was featured in the 2008 film, Diary of a Nymphomaniac. In addition, an authorized limited release live bootleg EP/DVD entitled reminder Live 2006, was released in August 2006. Dillon has worked as a composer for feature films since 2001.
Royal Crescent Mob was an American four-piece punk funk/funk rock band from Columbus, Ohio, United States, formed in 1985. Also known to their fans as the R.C. Mob, the band members included Brian "B" Emch (guitar), David Ellison, Harold "Happy" Chichester and after an early revolving door of drummers, Carlton Smith (drums).
Scott Ford is an American session bassist, vocalist, and arranger.
Craig Benjamin Wedren is an American singer-songwriter, musician and composer, who began his career fronting post-hardcore band Shudder to Think. Following the disbandment of Shudder to Think, Wedren pursued a career as a television and film music composer, as well as releasing solo material.
1965 is the sixth studio album by American rock band The Afghan Whigs. It was released on October 27, 1998, by Columbia Records.
Gentlemen is the fourth studio album by American alternative rock band the Afghan Whigs. It was recorded primarily at Ardent Studios in Memphis, with the band's frontman Greg Dulli producing, and released on October 5, 1993, by Elektra Records.
Black Love is the fifth album by the band the Afghan Whigs, released in March 1996. It was released by Elektra Records/Sub Pop in the US and by Mute in Europe, and was produced by Greg Dulli. Black Love was preceded by the single "Honky's Ladder" and followed by the single "Going to Town".
Scrawl was an American indie rock trio based in Columbus, Ohio, and active from the mid-1980s.
Howlin' Maggie was a four-piece band founded by Harold "Happy" Chichester in Columbus, Ohio, in 1994. Chichester was previously the bassist for Royal Crescent Mob, and is also a founding member of The Twilight Singers with Greg Dulli of The Afghan Whigs.
Blackberry Belle is the second full-length album released by The Twilight Singers. It was released by One Little Indian Records on October 14, 2003 and features guest appearances by Mathias Schneeberger, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Stanton Moore, Petra Haden, Kamasi Washington and Mark Lanegan. The album is a tribute to director Ted Demme, a close friend of Greg Dulli's who died of a heart attack while playing a game of basketball in January 2002. Dulli had been working on another project entitled Amber Headlights, but abandoned those sessions due to Demme's death. The recordings which followed, fueled in part by the memory of Demme, resulted in Blackberry Belle.
Twilight as Played by The Twilight Singers is the first album by The Twilight Singers, released by Columbia Records in 2000.
Amber Headlights is an album by Greg Dulli, released in 2005.
Afterhours is an Italian alternative rock band. The band was named after the Velvet Underground song of the same name.
Greg Dulli is an American musician from Hamilton, Ohio. Debuting as a member of the rock band the Afghan Whigs in 1986, Dulli has been a member of the Twilight Singers, Gutter Twins, and in 2020 released his debut solo album, Random Desire. Dulli is known as the voice of John Lennon in the 1994 film Backbeat, and has produced music for musicians such as Afterhours, and is known as a regular collaborator of Mark Lanegan and Joseph Arthur.
Dave Rosser was an American rock guitarist known for his work for the Afghan Whigs, who he joined in 2012. He played guitar on their albums Do to the Beast and In Spades. Previously, he was a member of the Gutter Twins and the Twilight Singers, projects started by Whigs frontman Greg Dulli.
Random Desire is the debut studio album by American singer Greg Dulli, lead singer of the bands the Afghan Whigs and the Twilight Singers. It was released on February 21, 2020, by Royal Cream and BMG Rights Management.
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