PETE CHAMBERS BEM
APART FROM BEING THE DIRECTOR/CURATOR AT THE COVENTRY MUSIC MUSEUM PETE AS A JOURNALIST HAS PROBABLY DONE MORE FOR THE PROMOTION OF COVENTRY & WARWICKSHIRE MUSIC THAN ANYONE ELSE. HE BEGAN WRITING IN THE COVENTRY WEEKLY NEWS AND BRUMBEAT IN THE EARLY EIGHTIES. HE WAS PART OF THE COVAID TEAM THAT RAISED THOUSANDS IN 1985 FOR EAST AFRICA. HE HAS WRITTEN SEVEN BOOKS ABOUT COVENTRY MUSIC, AND HIS BACKBEAT MUSIC COLUMN IN THE COVENTRY TELEGRAPH LASTED AN AMAZING ELEVEN YEARS, HE NOW WRITES THE MUSIC MATTERS COLUMN IN THE COVENTRY OBSERVER AND HAS WRITTEN IN MANY PUBLICATIONS INCLUDING RECORD COLLECTOR.
He was responsible for the creation of The Coventry Walk of Stars, Coventry’s 2-Tone Trail and The award winning Coventry Music Museum, where he volunteers unpaid four days a week from Thursday to Sunday 10.00am to 4.00pm.
Pete was inducted onto The Coventry Music Wall of Fame in 2011 and won The Coventry Good Citizen Award in 2014. In 2014 a national report was published by UK Music, in it they looked at music tourism, and Coventry was used as one of four cities of good examples. In it they said, “The development of Coventry’s music heritage tourism has largely been down to the enthusiasm of Pete Chambers, a local music expert. “He has been instrumental in many of the city’s recent music-related tourism developments, founding both the 2-Tone Trail and, more recently, Coventry Music Museum”. In 2016 he was awarded an BEM on the new Years Honours list a year later he was awarded an honorary degree from Coventry University and a “Points of Light” from the government, all for his services to local music.
Pete’s Coventry Telegraph Backbeat archive
https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/authors/pete-chambers/
Pete’s Coventry Observer Music matters archive
https://coventryobserver.co.uk/tags/news/music-matters/