John Chamberlin At the age of 14, he began his career as a professional musician playing saxophone and clarinet in a local dance band. After winning a scholarship, John began studying music at West Virginia University. During the summer after his sophomore year, John got the opportunity to play in a stage band at a club in Atlantic City New Jersey where he had the opportunity to back up such famous vocalists including Billy Eckstein, Jerry Butler, Aretha Franklin, and Sammy Davis Jr.After graduating from Indiana University where he transferred as a junior to study Music Therapy, John met and married Gail Stantus who played guitar and sang folk music. The two soon moved to Kalamazoo where John worked as a Music Therapist at Kalamazoo State Hospital. They soon met Janice Lakers who sang and played flute. Janice and Gail formed a folk duo. After a while they decided to add a rhythm section and so was born Sweet Maya. In Sweet Maya John sang, played flute, sax, and piano, composed and arranged. When the band broke up in 1974 (and John and Gail divorced), John moved to Ann Arbor to work at the University of Michigan Neuro-Psychiatric Institute. In 1976, after a joyful reunion concert of Sweet Maya (which was only supposed to be a one time event), the other members of the group persuaded John to leave Ann Arbor and come back to Kalamazoo where John rejoined Sweet Maya. Since the break of Sweet Maya in 1976, John has continued to live in Kalamazoo and lead his own group, for a while in the pop genre and gradually shifting to jazz. Recently he has been leading his piano trio and playing solo in the West Michigan Area. John has also has been musical director for a local church and has written praise songs, some of which are favorites at his church, Westwood United Methodist.