‘A space of joy and freedom’

On paper, the members of Michigan State University’s Groove Doctors 3 are a tad overqualified for what started as a non-paying Tuesday night gig at the Peanut Barrel. Vocalist Mike Lawrence teaches constitutional law. Drummer David Stowe teaches English and religious studies. Bassist Glenn Chambers teaches history and presently serves as interim dean of two colleges.

They don’t need to do this.

Then again, with all the intellectual and bureaucratic baggage they have to carry, maybe they do.

“Live and Let Live,” released May 23, is strictly “amateur” stuff in the highest and best sense of its root Latin word, “to love.”

“It’s a total space of joy and freedom for me,” Stowe said. “Especially at the Peanut Barrel, just to settle in under the dartboard with appreciative people, friends and family — it’s a kind of joy I don’t find in other places.”

“Live and Let Live” is, at its heart, a love letter to the classic rock and R&B sides of the 1960s, like Bobby Hebb’s “Sunny,” King Floyd’s “Groove Me” and Jimi Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary.” Even the original tunes sound like forgotten gems recently unearthed from the vaults.

They’re not quitting their day jobs, but who knows? The trio’s disarming sincerity, steady musicianship and relaxed rapport have already garnered heavy streaming traffic and warm praise on many online forums.

Lawrence seems bemused at the hatching of a debut album by three professors in their 60s, but they’re as serious about their music as they are about paring life down to a few key basics.

“It’s kind of a one-shot,” Lawrence said. “I’m 65 years old. Who knows what happens next? I might as well say some of the things that are really meaningful.”

The title track, “Live and Let Live,” jangles with peace-and-love vibes straight from the mid-1960s. The title of another original, “Love Is the Way,” speaks for itself.

The vibe is light and bouncy, with a subtle undertow of urgency. The original tune “Ash to Dust” gently invokes mortality with a loping groove and yearning harmonies (“It’s a wild ride/To the other side”). The chorus is buoyed by a series of surprising key changes that turn like the wheel of fortune.

“We have some time left, but it’s no guarantee, and you’ve got to seize the sources of meaning and satisfaction now,” Lawrence said. “So many things have been upended these days. It feels like things are falling apart in some ways, but these are really important things to grab onto.”

The group’s origins are informal and serendipitous. Lawrence and Stowe have been neighbors for more than 20 years. While their kids played together, the dads did likewise, with Stowe on conga drum and Lawrence on guitar and vocals.

The two professors became the nucleus of Jackalope, a hybrid ensemble that’s still on the scene, playing pop, rock, jazz, country and original tunes.

Lawrence and Chambers got to know each other when they played together in the MSU Community Music School Jazz Band.

“We bonded over jazz, R&B and Motown,” Lawrence said.

Two years ago, the trio began to assemble at Chambers’ house on Lansing’s west side. It was equipped with a studio and a drum kit, relieving Stowe of the burden of lugging drums around.

Another westside neighbor, Melik Brown, invited the group to practice at his now-defunct Lansing-themed store, Metro Melik 517.

The semi-public showcase, with Brown himself as an encouraging listener, eased the trio into performing publicly.

“We learned songs so quickly,” Stowe said. “We’d sit down and play it, and it would almost be good the first time.”

They started out in a jazzier vein but found their audience to be “limited,” in Chambers’ words.

“We started doing covers, and Mike started writing, and that’s how it kind of evolved,” Chambers said.

Starting in spring 2023, the trio began playing every other Tuesday at the Peanut Barrel, with the enthusiastic support of owner Mike Krueger.

Artist, photographer and musician Dick Bourgault approached the trio at a gig at Looking Glass Brewing Co. in DeWitt and asked if he could record them in his home studio. Bourgault contributes some fine keyboard work to a few tracks on “Live and Let Live.”

All three members bring tunes to the group. Chambers favors R&B and funk.

“I’m not a rock person at all,” Chambers said. “That’s more Mike’s thing. Not that I dislike it, I just didn’t grow up with it. I just wanted to play music.”

Lawrence’s heart is with British Invasion groups, Al Green and Motown.

“My first musical memory was in 1964, living in Berkeley, California, where my father was a grad student,” he said. “He came home with ‘Meet the Beatles!’ and I ate it up.”

Two of the Groove Doctors have folded music into their professional lives. Chambers studies music as a product of the nexus of Caribbean and African cultures. He’s working on a biography of Eric Dolphy, the idiosyncratic jazz multi-instrumentalist who straddled the avant-garde and was a frequent collaborator with John Coltrane. Stowe has written four books on music and American culture, from 1940s big-band music to Christian pop. (While Lawrence has not yet found any funky grooves in constitutional law, don’t count him out yet.)

But the simple joy of making music takes all three Groove Doctors far away from the stresses of writing and publishing.

“We all deal a lot with language,” Stowe said. “I have to work hard at that, but with the music, it’s just a beautiful flow. I come out of there feeling rejuvenated.”

Moonlighting as a Groove Doctor re-plugs Chambers into a lifelong love of jazz, blues, funk and reggae he developed while growing up in south Louisiana.

“Being a professor at MSU is what I do to support my family, but it’s never been a big part of my identity,” Chambers said. “I just like making music and hanging with regular folks.”