CHUCK NATION

Bio

Chuck is a past Louisiana State Fiddle Champion. He also plays mandolin, guitar, banjo, and bass equally well and has won numerous awards and contests throughout the South with all instruments. In fact, while in college, he payed his tuition in large part with contest earnings won on weekends.

He was a member of Louisville, Ky.’s legendary Bluegrass Alliance from 1972-74, whose alumni include Vince Gill and Tony Rice. Chuck has played across the U.S., Alaska, Canada, Japan, throughout Eastern & Western Europe, and has been on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, New Orleans World’s Fair, TV and radio. He has performed at college campuses, festivals, churches, theaters, clubs, state fairs, village squares, and on street corners to audiences as small as one and as large as 90,000.

Chuck has worked as a studio musician, traveled extensively with various professional groups and opened shows for a diverse list of folks ranging from Ernest Tubb to Mother Maybelle Carter to Mac Davis to John Hartford. He has shared the stage and played with the likes of Bluegrass luminaries Bill Monroe, Mac Wiseman, Sam Bush, Vassar Clements, the Whites, Dan Crary, Byron Berline, Allen Shelton, and many others.

“I have looked over and stood on a lot of shoulders, picked with a lot of other good musicians, took mental notes, listened carefully, learned from all, and played what I heard in my mind. Thanks to all.”

He grew up in the hills of North Georgia, where stringed music, jam sessions, fiddle contests, old school house shows, live radio, etc., were common. He recalls that his first paying gig was playing guitar for a square dance when he was 9 years old and he made eight dollars.

Chuck holds a Masters Degree from Dallas Theological Seminary and has been the pastor of First Baptist Church of Flowery Branch, Ga. since 1998. He has served as volunteer chaplain at Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville, Ga.; Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Chattahoochee Baptist Association and member of the Evangelism Committee, Vice President of the Associational Ministers’ Conference, and on the board of directors of Gainesville Care Center and Baptist International Missions Association.

Since 1988 Chuck has led many groups on short-term mission trips under the auspices of the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board to the lands of Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Belarus, Costa Rica, Serbia, Quebec, and Alaska.

He, along with his wife and children, traveled and sang gospel music together as a group in all types of church meetings and community events until the kids were grown.

At the age of twenty years Chuck gave his heart and life to God and became a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ. He unashamedly dedicated his life to spend the rest of it doing only and whatever the Lord wanted him to do.

He promised the Lord then that he would never turn down any opportunities to proclaim the good news of salvation. He has been serving the Lord to the best of his abilities since that time. Music playing became a part, rather than the whole, of his main purpose in life, which is to serve God and please Him.