Chambers has spent much of his life like this: surrounded by music, history and academia.

He grew up in Houston when it was "still very much a southern town," as he put it. More specifically, he came from a musical family from Southern Louisiana that exposed him to cajun, funk, soul, zydeco and any other Black diasporic genres. 

For Chambers, music was quite literally everywhere. So it’s only natural that he jumped around between various wind instruments in middle and high school before the guitar craze of the eighties hit.

"Everybody had a guitar, and guitar centers were popping up everywhere," he said of his high school years. It was around that time that he picked up a bass, an instrument that really stuck with him. It also helped that he had an uncle that played the instrument professionally.

Chambers played bass through high school and college, where he attended a small private university in Minnesota, University of St. Thomas. He kept in touch with his musical roots, joining some bands and learning how to play upright bass in his four years as an undergrad. 

Although he was a talented musician, Chambers studied history, a subject he was always drawn to. "[Music] has always been this creative outlet for me. It's a place I can go, a place I can escape to," he said. 

When he eventually decided he wanted to pursue a career in academia, he made his way to Howard University in Washington D.C. 

But Chambers ran into an issue. He didn’t have much time on his hands with the engrossing schedule of grad-school and later professor work at Texas A&M University. On top of that, he eventually married and had a son.

He still stayed in touch with the music, even picking up drums in the meantime. Chambers just didn’t have time for organized band-playing after graduating from St. Thomas.

He came to MSU in the fall of 2013, where he eventually became the director of African American studies, a job that led him to Dr. David Stowe, a professor of religious studies working on the same floor of Wells Hall. 

Stowe, a drummer from the Manhattan area, came to MSU after working in Washington D.C. for a few years in his post-undergraduate years.

Like Chambers, Stowe was encouraged to do music from a young age by a musical family. It was around seventh or eighth grade that he started to get serious about jazz when his parents took him to Manhattan jazz clubs. He took a lot from jazz drummers in that time, something he considers the highest form of drumming.

When Stowe and Chambers met, Stowe introduced him to Dr. Mike Lawrence, another MSU law professor that he’d known for 25 years.

The three hit it off almost immediately. 

At the time, Lawrence and Stowe were already playing together in another band called Jackalope, so Chambers and Lawrence would get together and play bass when they could find the time. The duo got into the habit of doing monthly performances at local coffee shops or house gigs.

Ironically, it wasn’t until COVID when the three really began to get together, even if virtually.

Lawrence’s "COVID thing," as Chambers described it, was getting into music recording. He had the idea of recording tracks and sending them to Chambers and Stowe to play over it, mimicking the sound of the now-band playing together.

"Okay, well, this sounds pretty decent," Chambers recalled thinking. For the first time since being an undergraduate student, Chambers had the time to join a band.

Eventually, the three would practice together on their back porches. When the time came when they could get gigs again, they started playing out at local restaurants, farmers markets and in Lansing’s REO Town district. Chambers would play bass, Stowe drums and Lawrence guitar. 

"People were really enjoying our groove," Lawrence said, a concept that fueled their band name, Groove Doctors 3. They had day jobs, so they weren’t performing for any kind of compensation. The band was an outlet for each of them.

"It's very easy to just come to Michigan State every day, do my job, read these books, write stuff or whatever, and go home and turn around and do it all over again," Chambers said. 

But, on a more solemn note, he questioned what people want to think of him when he’s gone. "Yes, I'm a historian, I'm a professor at Michigan State University," he said. "But I'd rather people say, oh man, he was a good guy and he was a really good bass player."

For Stowe, it takes his mind off the busyness of the world. It’s a craft that forces him to be "totally in the moment," he said. "That’s very healthy for me."

But Stowe’s love for music goes beyond gigs at The Peanut Barrel and the Meridian Township Farmers’ Market. The professor has also taught a number of courses relating to music, even penning a book titled ‘No Sympathy for the Devil: Christian Pop Music and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism.’

He said being a musician gives him a bit more authority over the subject in the classroom, which helps him reach students better. "Students are aware that I'm not just teaching a subject," he said.

In Lawrence’s case, he feels that studying law takes discipline; a trait that isn’t too different from the music-making process. "While carrying a tune may not be a prerequisite for most degrees, the power of music is very present in the classroom and beyond then a quote, focus, discipline, organization, it's all required to succeed in law school and then as a lawyer," he said. 

More recently however, Lawrence had another idea. What if they released an album?

He took the lead on the project, writing seven original songs and putting together covers of eight more with the help of another recording artist.

"The hope was to put music to some thoughts about some guiding principles of peace, love and tolerance," he said. ‘Live and Let Live,’ which was released May 23, is the first album from Groove Doctors 3. The jazzy-rock album included covers of the likes of Al Green, Bobby Hebb and Jimi Hendrix.

The album was met with some acclaim, too.

"This group has a genre-bending approach," one review of the album read. "If there was ever a message for these dark times, it is embedded in this single," wrote another reviewer in response to the album’s title track.

But what would normally be the start of a band’s career may actually signal the end for the Groove Doctors.

"The album is sort of the culmination of our existence," Lawrence said. All three members are at varying points in their careers, namely Lawrence and Stowe, who are both nearing retirement, compared to Chambers, who currently sits as the dean of two colleges at MSU. 

On top of his professional career, he has also been playing in a second jazz band for the last year or so. So Chambers, who once again found himself balancing his academic life with his music life, had to make a choice.

"[The jazz band] is much more in line with where my real passion is around music," he said. "And so when having to make a choice, I ended up leaning there"

Because of this, the band rarely rehearses or performs much all together anymore. They still play with Chambers’ recorded parts, and he’ll do the occasional one off, but the future of the band is largely uncertain.

Still, the choice was hard for Chambers. And now that he made his choice, he said that not to be in the thick of it with the other two is "different."

Regardless, he said there’s no bad blood between the bandmates, and Stowe even remains optimistic that they’ll continue getting together at some point in the future.

"Secretly, I hope Groove Doctors find a way to play some more, because I think we'd like to and it's more just a matter of scheduling," he said. "It wouldn't surprise me if, in a year or so, maybe we can start getting back together. And that's it. That's really enough for me."

The Groove Doctors don’t aspire to be a worldwide sensation. Even playing just a couple times a month is good enough for the three MSU professors.