Art and music fuel Legends in Concert bassist

With the ease at which a baby babbles, Chad Thompson is working out the strings of his bass guitar. Funk is flowing freely like water down a stream. This spontaneous groove he’s created has overtaken him. He is playing his instrument with the cool of a blues musician chilling in the mellow confines of a backwoods junk joint.

However, Thompson is not somewhere in the boondocks where folks tired of working their fingers to the bone have gathered to release, relax and get rowdy to down-home blues and funk. Instead, Thompson, 31, is at home making his bass guitar speak in tongues any soul can understand. It says, “I will move you.”

And it is the truth. Thompson is a man who has talent oozing from his hands and fingers and somehow manages to place the thumbprint of his heart into everything creative he does. Therefore when you experience his talent, you see him – not some archetype. You get the real deal. You get to know the man.

Then just when you think you are intimately acquainted with layers of his genius, you discover there is more for you to unearth. Thompson is also an amazing artist who creates intricate, statement pieces that magnify the honey and horror of which humans are capable.

Here and now, in his cozy condo, Thompson is flawlessly frolicking in and out of a music stratosphere where hips don’t lie. They will shake because of the music Thompson makes.

His love, Nathalie Hunt, knows. Day in and day out at home, she sees his genius a work. The artist, musician, bass guitarist at Legends in Concert in Myrtle Beach and music teacher is a man whose art has heart aplenty.

“While watching Chad perform on his bass, I feel his soul through his hands,” said Hunt, director of Coastal Montessori Charter School in Pawleys Island. “His bass is an extension of his being. He is never without an instrument in his hands on his down time.”

His mornings start with coffee, the stronger the better. Then, his creativity is unharnessed.

A quick peek into the home he and Hunt share together reveals music is a master Thompson willingly serves.

His upright bass, bass guitar and mandolin are all strategically placed in the living area, as if they were on museum display.

“One of Chad’s greatest strengths as a musician is his versatility,” said Trey Younts, production manager at Legends. “He accurately replicates various musical styles with ease. Though he plays bass with us at Legends in Concert, he is also an accomplished guitarist and pianist.”

Thompson’s journey into the world of creativity began when he was in Myers Park Traditional School in Charlotte, N.C. It is where he entered a Martin Luther King Jr. drawing competition. Students throughout Mecklenburg County, N.C., participated.

“I was in the top three,” Thompson said after playing a riff on his bass guitar. “I wasn’t first, but it was enough to spark my interest.”

Around the age of 10, his musical talents began naturally manifesting.

He was really into ska music – a form of Jamaican music that was the grandfather of reggae and has components of R&B and other American music mixed in.

Although his interest in ska was short-lived, his interest in music in general never waned. He began fronting bands by the age of 12. The last Charlotte-based band he founded was an ensemble called Asleep in the Weeds.

“It was a crazy avant-garde, jazz infusion group,” said Thompson, who started listening to The Beatles when he was a boy before becoming nutty over Nirvana.

He bounced back and forth between music and art during his youth, becoming more entrenched with both as the years passed on.

“By the time I got to college, I pretty much knew I wanted to major in art,” said Thompson, who received a B.F.A. in sculpture from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

He chose to pursue art as his primary interest in college, rather than music, because he thought he could learn more and earn more.

Still, just as the sun rules the sky with the moon, art and music both govern Thompson’s spirit.

“I could never choose one over the other,” said Thompson, who is inspired by artists such as Romare Bearden and Chuck Close, and a variety of bands including Alabama Shakes and Phish. “The whole creative process keeps my brain active.”

Thompson’s creativity rockets to outer space and travels at warp speed without falling into a black hole.

Each year, he plays about 320 shows as the bassist at Legends, where he has worked since 2014.

Somehow, he still finds time to teach music at Coastal Montessori Charter School and create on canvas and majorly rock it out on stage.

“His artistic energy is upbeat, positive, refreshing, authentic, eclectic, abstract, and ultimately his artistic style provokes the viewer to feel something,” Hunt said.

All of Thompson’s work is riveting. When he has solos at Legends, he slays. Even the most elderly in the crowd holler their enthusiastic praises.

Before he goes to perform at Legends, he typically works on his collages, an art avenue he started traveling down about two years ago.

“The collage art is my response to the overwhelming amount of images that people are bombarded with daily, and how we use all these images to form our own narrative of what is happening in the world,” he said.

One such piece, Syria 2015, is dedicated to the people damaged and destroyed in that war-ravaged country.

The focal point is an image of a Syrian refuge child whose face is composed, in part, of images of crying mothers and dying children.

“My goal was not to politicize the piece, but I want the viewer to understand that this conflict has real victims and real consequences for the people over there, especially the women and children.”

Ultimately, Thompson hopes his art and music can help someone, somewhere, somehow.

“I believe art and music are bigger than the person who creates because it is innate to our DNA,’’ he said. “It is such an important part of what makes us human. Art and music are things that change how people think and how culture operates. So, I think having a small part in that relative process is doing a service to your fellow man.”

Contact Johanna D. Wilson at JohannasCarolinaCharacters@gmail.com or to suggest subjects for an upcoming column.

This story was originally published March 6, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Art and music fuel Legends in Concert bassist."