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Davis and Berkey used whatever instrument seemed appropriate to the piece, using a toy piano on one piece and a full pipe organ on another, with copious interleaving of piano and harpsichord. All four of these albums maintained the blend of baroque classical music, light jazz, and rock and featured Jackson Berkey's virtuosic keyboard work. The first four Fresh Aire albums constituted an exploration of the four seasons, with Fresh Aire being spring, Fresh Aire II being fall, Fresh Aire III being summer, and Fresh Aire IV being winter. Fresh Aire II was subsequently released in 1977, and Fresh Aire III was released in 1979. Since no major label would handle the distribution of Fresh Aire, Davis founded his own music label, American Gramaphone (a play on the classical record label Deutsche Grammophon), to release the album, which was published in 1975 under the pseudonym Mannheim Steamroller.

Įven before the height of McCall's popularity, Davis produced an unusual album of classical music performed entirely by Davis and musical collaborator and keyboardist Jackson Berkey, using electric bass (played by Eric Hansen) and synthesizers.įresh Aire and American Gramaphone Davis was named Country Music Writer of the Year in 1976, a genre he is not fond of.

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The song was based on the character created by Fries and music composed by Davis for a series of Clio winning ads for Metz Baking Company for their Old Home Bread product. The name 'Mannheim Steamroller' comes from an 18th-century German musical technique, Mannheim roller ( German: Mannheimer Walze), a crescendo passage having a rising melodic line over an ostinato bass line, popularized by the Mannheim school of composition.īefore the fame of Steamroller, Davis had been best known for collaborating with his friend Bill Fries on the songs of the country music character ' C.

Mannheim Steamroller began as an alias for record producer and composer Chip Davis. The group has sold 28 million albums in the U.S. The group is known primarily for its Fresh Aire series of albums, which blend classical music with elements of new age and rock, and for its modern recordings of Christmas music. Mannheim Steamroller is an American neoclassical new-age music ensemble founded and directed by percussionist/composer Chip Davis in 1974.