For Petaluma’s Dylan Chambers, music is a lifelong adventure

It’s a rainy winter day and Dylan Chambers is taking a break from his duties at the Haight Street Arts Center in San Francisco to talk about some of the things he cherishes most in life - art, music and family. Chambers, the 33-year-old front-man for the Petaluma-based band Midnight Transit, has worked at the arts center for almost two years.

“Painting, creating music, it’s all in the same wheelhouse to me,” he explains. “I’m sort of the jack-of-all-trades running this place day-to-day and maintaining the gallery when we’re open to the public. We have a print studio upstairs that focuses on [rock concert] poster art from the ’60s right through now. I’m also the artist-in-residence and I put on benefit concerts and events. John Oates of Hall and Oates, Emmylou Harris and Bob Weir are some of the heavyweight names who have come through.”

Among the psychedelic-rock art reproduced by the center’s print studio are vintage posters promoting the Chambers Brothers, the pioneering multi-racial rock/rhythm and blues band that was led by his father, Lester, and his uncle, Willie.

“It’s cool because I’m able to talk to folks about actually knowing one of those bands that’s in one of those posters,” he says.

Indeed, Dylan’s history with the Chambers Brothers - who scored hits with “Time Has Come Today,” “Peace Love & Happiness,” “People Get Ready” and “Funky,” and other songs - is far from academic. In 1989, at age 4, Dylan joined the Chambers Brothers onstage to sing Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay” at Lincoln Center in New York City.

“I performed a couple of times with my pops,” he says, “but that show was the defining moment when I look back. That’s when I knew that being onstage and performing was something I needed to do the rest of my life.”

For Dylan, performing is “higher than just doing something you love or that is creative-it’s a calling.”

Despite his early appearance at Lincoln Center, Dylan’s family has endured hardships and tribulations. But he’s learned from his father’s experiences.

Lester, 78, grew up in in the 1940s Mississippi as the son of sharecroppers who faced poverty and oppression that included the constant threat of Ku Klux Klan lynchings. At age nine, Lester’s family escaped in the middle of the night from a brutal landlord and headed for Los Angeles. Lester and Willie, now 80, rose to rock stardom in the 1960s only to be cheated out of their royalties. In fact, the brothers received no royalties between 1967 and 1994. Eventually, Lester and Dylan found themselves homeless while sheltering on occasion at a Novato recording studio. Yoko Ono heard of their plight and in 2010 rented a house on Petaluma’s east side for Lester and Dylan. Lester later received assistance from Sweet Relief, a non-profit charity that provides grants to needy to musicians, to help with medical problems.

“Petaluma is the longest I’ve lived in one place,” says Dylan, who has resided in 10 states over the years.

As a child, he often toured with his father and his mother Lola Chambers, who works in the film industry as a costume supervisor. In the past, she designed costumes for the Chambers Brothers, Earth Wind and Fire, the Commodores and other top acts.

Lester and Lola are now estranged.

“Whenever my dad would get on a big tour and she wasn’t working on a film, we’d hop in the car and tour with dad,” Dylan recalls. “I remember touring with him every summer when I was 7, 8, 9, 10 years old.

After moving to Petaluma, Lester slowly resumed his career. But in 2013, he was attacked while on stage at the Hayward Blues Festival by a woman enraged that the then-73-year-old singer had dedicated Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” to the memory of the late Trayvon Martin, the Florida teen gunned down by self-appointed Neighborhood Watch vigilante George Zimmerman.

He is still recovering from the injuries he sustained in the attack.

Meanwhile, Dylan is refining his own sound.

“We’re cultivating some tasty songs right now,” he says. “It’s all high-energy rock ’n roll. It’s pop with a little bit of funk and a little bit of reggae. There are a few love songs, a few songs about changing the world, a few songs about having a good time. My vocals give a little bit of a soul aspect.”

That is a bit of an understatement. Dylan is blessed with a soaring soul scream that gives the band’s songs a real kick.

“That’s what’s known in the South as a ‘gospel gator growl,’” he says with a laugh. “Dad’s got one of the best ones that I’ve ever heard. Watching him and mimicking him is something I’ve taken to, though I’ve modernized it a bit, so it’s got a touch of soul, but it’s not too old school-y for young audiences.

“I mean,” Dylan continues, “there are hip-hop and rap fans out there who have never heard a live band, just DJs and programmed tracks! I want to be able to get those kids back into Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding and Sam Cooke and people that get me going.”

One of the things that distinguishes Midnight Transit-and echoes the hippie soul of the Chamber Brothers - is the band’s positive message.

“We don’t swear in our songs,” Dylan says. “We don’t write derogatory lyrics about women. We don’t write anything with a negative viewpoint. As much as we all love angst-y songs, we don’t want to write anything that anyone is going to want to kill themselves to. I mean, all musicians go between depression and happiness, because we have to move back and forth to create a balance. But I want my songs to keep everyone on the upswing, so that our audience goes away feeling like ‘All right, everything is going to be a little bit better. Life is going to be a little bit better and I can go a little bit further in life.’”