Mannheim Steamroller Background Information

Mannheim Steamroller is a popular “New Age” band founded by Chip Davis. They are well-known for their Fresh Aire albums and Christmas music. Chip Davis was born into a family of musicians in Ohio, America. He began to learn music at a raw age of 4 with his grandmother as his first piano teacher. Later, he graduated in 1969 as a classically trained bassoonist and eventually took up a job that changed his life forever. He began writing advertising jingles for an Omaha ad agency, including a series of spots about fictional truck driver C.W. McCall which became extremely popular.

Soon, Davis started exploring new ways of creating music and came up with a style he calls “18th Century classical rock.” He named his band ‘Mannheim Steamroller,' which is the name of an 18th-Century musical technique known as the crescendo. When mainstream record companies refused to distribute his new album, Davis founded his own music label, American Gramaphone and released the album named Fresh Aire in 1975. The album went onto become a best seller. Since then, Davis has released seven more Fresh Aire albums. Fresh Aire VII was awarded the Grammy for Best New Age Recording in 1990. The last album titled Fresh Aire 8 was released in August 2000.

In 1984, Davis once again created an unconventional album by infusing new music style into the traditional Christmas music. The "Mannheim Steamroller Christmas" album sold more than 6 million copies. Davis went onto release many more bestseller Christmas albums, the most recent one being ‘Christmas Song' which was released in late 2007. Mannheim Steamroller has sold more than 18 million Christmas albums till date.