Chuck Webb Bio

Chuck Webb was born in Newark, NY on September 4, 1942. He was raised in the small farming community of Williamson, NY.

He began playing an old upright bass that he found in storage at school. Nobody was teaching stringed instruments, so he purchased the bass as surplus property with money earned from his paper route.

When he was 13 1/2 he began playing with a country western band in a club a few towns south of Williamson. Chuck started playing the Fender Precision Bass when the rope holding his upright bass on the top of the car broke on the way to a job.

When he was 16, he started playing with a group called "The Rockin' BluJays" which became very popular with the younger set around the Rochester area and surrounding towns. He played with this band until he graduated from high school and joined the Air Force in 1960.

Upon graduating from Tech School at Chanute AFB, Chuck was assigned to the 456th Airborne Missile Maintenance Squadron at Beale AFB in Marysville, CA.

It wasn't long before Chuck was playing with a four piece country band in the clubs around N. California, starting with the Melody Club in Yuba City and moving on to Barbara Jean's in Magalia, CA. In 1962, Chuck got a call from a band manager in Yuba City offering him a position with a band that was forming called "Rick and the Checkmates." This band played current rock tunes and catered to the high school set. They played all over N. California, as far away as Arcata and Dunsmuir.

After a year or so, Chuck went to work in a club in Yuba City called the "Town Pump" with Dave Brown and Art Dickens, a first cousin of Little Jimmy Dickens. This job lasted for a year or so. Then on Sunday, Chuck went into a venue in Sutter, CA called the Sutter Corral to hear a band that was fronted by Harvey Brown, who was Dave Brown's brother. Chuck was asked to sit in and was hired on the spot. This began a relationship that lasted 25 years.

At the time, the Sutter Corral was a 500 seat venue that featured guest recording artists every Friday and Saturday night. The touring artists in that eay didn't travel with their bands, so Harvey Brown and the Sidewinders got to back up many of these featured artists, including Freddy Hart, Tommy Collins, Rose Maddox, Joee and Rose Lee Maphis, the LeGarde Twins, Del and Sue Smart, Bonnie Owens, Kay Adams and many more. There was even a live radio show on KMYC every Saturday night broadcast from the Corral.
This was a great learning experience for Chuck, backing up all these different artists with their various styles of music. After three good years at the Sutter Corral, the Sidewinders started breaking away from the club scene. Many of their followers asked them to play for weddings, fund raisers and parties. By 1974, the band had stopped playing clubs and was booked steadily for these events.

Chuck retired from the Sidewinders and the music business in 1992. In 2002 he started to regain his interest in music. In 2011 he started playing with the Sacramento Western Swing Society Jam Band, the core group of musicians that make the society's jam room so successful. He also works with a Western swing band called "The Fortunate Few". Chuck has been married to his best friend Sheri for 33 years.