Craig Chaquico

However, in 1990, one of rock’s finest axemen left the band and the dues paying began. The Sacramento, Calif., native was on his own, plus he was on the verge of changing his signature guitar style from electric to acoustic.

He was reunited with his first musical love – the acoustic guitar – with help from his pregnant wife, who welcomed its soothing sound. The minimal success of Big Bad Wolf, a hard rock band he launched after leaving Starship, also contributed to the switch.

Armed with a different sound, Chaquico took on the challenges of assuming a solo identity and launching a new phase of his career. Touring took on new meaning. While he and his four-piece band, Acoustic Highway, have headlining dates through 1999, they also tour as a support act. Recently, they opened for The Rippingtons featuring Russ Freeman, covering nearly 50 cities on the tour, which ended in July.

“I’ve seen it from both sides. I know what it’s like to be in the big rock ‘n’ roll band with your own jet and two semi-trucks and tour buses and all the expensive hotels,” Chaquico, 44, told POLLSTAR from his Mill Valley home in Northern California. “You definitely have to be at a certain level of touring to make those kinds of ends meet.”

Luckily for the Portuguese performer, years in the biz left him well-connected. Laura Engel, who counted Oingo Boingo among her management clients, had been friends with the artist since they were teens. When he called her for management advice, she offered to represent him.

“If not for her and Higher Octave as a label, it would have been hard for me to break and get out into the public eye,” said Chaquico, who has sold more than 600,000 solo albums. “She recognized the importance of live shows and touring, and what it meant to go out and do a tour at a loss just to get out there to let people know you’re there.” The man who still loves rock ‘n’ roll plays about 100 concerts a year.

“When it really boils down to it, it’s what you play and how you connect with the audience. You can do that on a budget, and you can compete against bands that are spending a lot more money and not getting the crowd off,” Chaquico said.

In addition to tour changes, Guitar Player magazine’s best pop instrumental guitarist of 1996 has had to market his nonconformist sound, which he described as contemporary instrumental or smooth jazz. “I’ve opened for Sammy Hagar and gotten a standing ovation, so it can fit in different areas,” he said.

Fitting in has been a double-edged sword. On one hand, the down-to-earth musician has fit in effortlessly with some of music’s biggest names – Jerry Garcia, Carlos Santana, Grace Slick, Hagar, David Crosby, Graham Nash and others – who have been his concert mates as well as friends. On the other hand, his acoustic sound doesn’t fit perfectly into music’s established categories.

“The blues labels would say, ‘Gee, it’s pretty bluesy but if you make it sound a little more bluesy, we could work with you. Right now, maybe a rock label’s better.’ Then the rock labels would say, ‘Well, it’s kind of rock but we kind of feel that if you made it more rock, it’d be more of what we’d be into,'” Chaquico remembered.

In 1993, Higher Octave founder and president Matt Marshall convinced the frustrated musician to sign with his label. His debut, Acoustic Highway, was named Billboard’s top new age indie album and won a Bammie for outstanding indie album.

The second of his five CDs, 1994’s Acoustic Planet, reached No. 1 on Billboard’s new age-adult alternative chart, and garnered a Grammy nomination for best new age album and a Bammie nomination. June’s release, Four Corners, is still charting. The diverse performer, who provided the guitar licks for the title character in the Gumby movie, predicted his next CD will hit stores by summer 2000.

While work begins on the new album, he also continues performing about one free hospital concert a week on behalf of the National Association of Music Therapy. His drive stems from a desire to touch people with music, as he was. At age 12, he found comfort playing his guitar when he was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries after a drunk driver hit his family’s car.

Additionally, he’s on the lookout for new management since Engel was recently recruited into the film industry. “That’s the hardest thing,” he said. “It’s really difficult to find someone you can really trust and count on.”

While the multitalented artist can count on himself and his band, he can’t expect to cruise to success at warp speed the second time around. However, he won’t have to find his way back – as his hit Starship song said – if he stays on course.