SAM DEAN The Roanoke Times

At 66, singer/songwriter Chuck Love is still passionate about breaking into the music industry.

If you believe in your dream, why stop? That's Chuck Love's philosophy.

That's kept him going through nearly a half-century pursuing success in the music business.

When Love was a younger man, he wanted the spotlight on his performances. These days, at 66 and just past knee replacement surgery, he's looking to write that one hit song, or to help push that one young talent toward stardom.

Don't expect to see him down in the mouth because it hasn't happened yet. Love says that his journey is for all the dreamers out there.

"There's nothing that's ever going to change my mind" about pursuing musical success, he said. "Hopefully, I think my break is going to come. I don't know when or where."

Charles Lovelace Jr. was 16 when he took the stage for the first time, for a school Christmas dance in Marlinton, W.Va. It was 1959. He had been playing and singing for a couple of years by then, inspired by his father, a musician who had performed in and around the little mining town. The younger Lovelace took a stage name and started a band for that first show -- Chuck Love and the Drifters.

The kids responded enthusiastically. He was hooked.

A couple of years later, the Lovelace family moved to Roanoke. That didn't change Love's inclinations -- he and his father began making trips to Nashville, Tenn.'s Music Row in hopes of getting Love a deal. Love admits to some naivete.

"I didn't know what they meant when they said, 'Get your songs published,' " Love recalled. "I thought you just went in to Decca, Capitol, and if you had good stuff, they'd sign you up."

Instead, he got a piece of stabilizing advice from one industry insider: Make a local name for yourself, and sell your records locally, get on regional radio.

Taking that advice turned out to be great for Love, on a personal level. In 1965, he walked into the Krispy Kreme on Melrose, and noticed a woman working in back, and he started talking to her. A year later, they married.

Love and his wife, Agnes, have been married for 43 years. They have a son, Martin "Marty" Lovelace, 41, named after Love's idol, the late country music superstar Marty Robbins.

By the time Chuck and Agnes met, he was deeply into playing music. Agnes Lovelace believes her husband could have been a Nashville star. Instead, he took on day jobs, winding up at Yokohama, where he retired in 2002.

"I know he sacrificed a lot to make a home for myself and our child," Agnes Lovelace said. "He gave up a lot of chances, and more than likely he would've made it 30 years ago if he would have sacrificed us. So that means a lot to me, to know that he put myself and our son above his dream of making it in music."

Instead of risking family and financial security in Nashville, Love and family settled in Salem. His band, Country Roads, played a lot of shows at fraternal lodges and long-gone joints such as the Shamrock Club, the Zebra Club, the Golden Horseshoe -- and Roanoke's perennial roadhouse, the Coffee Pot.

In 1970, he got a TV gig -- "The Chuck Love Show" -- on WBRA. It was on Fridays at 8 p.m., just opposite "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour." Campbell's nationally broadcast show was on for four seasons. Love's show was done after one.

That sort of luck might make someone bitter. Not Love.

"I've had a wonderful time," he said about his career of fits and starts. "I never did let any of it disappoint me. I'd just try harder.

"It'll be a dream till they close the lid on the casket."

Sounds like the words to a great country song.

Along the way, Love became friends with Roy Moore, the longtime events manager at Salem Civic Center who is now retired. They shared a love for music and for helping other local players get a leg up on the scene.

"He wasn't doing this just for himself," Moore said. "He's also tried to help a lot of people with his knowledge and exposure in the music industry."

These days, Love is working with a couple of female singers: Zipporah Bird and Sherry "Sherry K" Harmon. They call the act Seneca. Recently, Love and Seneca were at Southwest Recording in Roanoke, adding vocals to some demos.

Chuck Crush, who owns Southwest Recording, has worked a lot with Love. He said he is impressed by Love's work ethic. For example, after Love writes a parcel of his countless country and rock 'n' roll songs, he sends his arrangements to a demo studio in Nashville for instrument and some vocal recording.

"He has a lot of it mapped out, with a good ear for intros and arrangements," said Nashville-based engineer David Johnson, of Poolside Productions.

Once the recordings are in Love's hands, he brings singers with him to Southwest to lay down vocal tracks.

"I know what's involved in writing those songs," Crush said. "It's a lot of work. For him to have done it for this long and to continue to do it on a regular basis is just amazing."

For Love, though, there's no other option. As it has for years, the idea of living a dream comes up.

"You've got to have a dream, and you can't let go of it," he said. "If you do, you're lost.

"A good song will find its way in life."