The founding father of Mannheim Steamroller has been slightly steamrollered himself during the past year.

And it hurts as only the surgical rebuilding of almost half your neck (four vertebrae included) can hurt.

Chip Davis, the architect of one of New Age music's most instantly identifiable sounds, will be spending the next six months learning how to hurt less as he heals from the serious Mayo Clinic surgery.

He'll be doing so complete with "a neck brace holding everything in place." And his right arm pretty much out of musical commission.

For a drummer, that's not the prognosis you want to hear.

Even so, Davis sounds upbeat and ready to move forward in the areas of composition, studio work and the all-around musical brainstorming that have formed the bedrock of his career.

As of this past week, he was able to conduct an interview for the first time since undergoing hospitalization in late December.

That supine sojourn was the payback for what he calls "the wear and tear of 45 years of playing the drums."

As a gentleman Nebraska farmer, Davis also spends a lot of time on tractors and other heavy equipment (to keep the Steamroller motif trucking along, no doubt).

"I'm still pretty stiff, but things look pretty good on the MRIs," he says. "I was in agony during the Christmas tour. The pain was horrendous. I came off the stage every night and couldn't talk, the pain was so severe. "

But, he adds, "How do you tell that to the 12,000 people who've bought tickets to see you?"

Finally, something had to give - namely, those four shot vertebrae.

"I discovered I was in worse shape than I thought," Davis says. He literally segued from the last concert on the Christmas tour (Dec. 26) to his first day in a hospital bed (Dec. 27).

Clearly, he won't be physically present for Mannheim Steamroller's impending "Fresh Aire" concert at the U.S. Cellular Coliseum in Bloomington (7:30 p.m. April 3, tickets still available).

But the long arm of Chip Davis will be extended our way, via a special video introduction, followed by the trademark multi-media Mannheim explosion of classical-meets-rock rhythms, colorful dollops of light and all-around techno-wizardry.

The Mannheim Streamroller we'll see is, in fact, one of two Steamrollers navigating the musical terrain of America and the world at large.

"Two or three years ago," begins Davis, "we started having the need for another unit of the band who would be able to stay in one place and play seven performances a week in Branson, Mo. Well, we couldn't be in two places at once."

Luckily for Davis, "I had the acquaintance of a number of students who had taken lessons from former Mannheim Steamroller members."

And, yes, Mannheim has been around long enough for its members to have grown middle-aged and become teachers of kids who are now in their 20s and 30s.

Nearly 35 years ago, when Davis was a rock-'n'-roll longhair who had been weaned on the sounds of the '60s and '70s, his musical education had pushed him in a classical direction - but never too far away from his weaning.

That tug-of-war over his musical soul led him to collaborate with some of the cronies who would become part of the original Mannheim consortium.

Among them was Bill Fries, for whom Davis created the fictional musical persona of a good-ole-boy country singer named C.W. McCall.

At the height of the C.B. radio/trucker craze of the mid-'70s, Davis and Fries penned a little ditty called "Convoy," which became one of 1975's more curious, and persistent, No. 1 hits.

"You know the drums and piano that start out the song? That's me and Jackson Berkey," says Davis.

It was Berkey and Davis who would switch from semis to a heavier brand of equipment as the founding fathers of Mannheim Steamroller (Mannheim, for the record, is a reference to the 18th-century Mannheim school of composition in Germany, where a "Mannheim roller," was the name for the school's signature ascending arpeggio).

The initial result, 1974's "Fresh Aire," set off a series of musical repercussions that have continued reverberating to this day - through several dozen albums, thousands of concerts and countless TV appearances.

Before the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Larry Elgart's Hooked on Classics came along, it was Davis and company who were honing the art of pumping up a classical sound with synthesizers and a backbeat.

"I like some of that stuff, too, but I'm torn a little because I'm quite the purist," Davis says.

And the purist in him didn't want to hear existing classics by Bach or even Glenn Miller given the pop-rock makeover.

"I guess I would have to say the main difference between the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and us is that we're more disciplined, in the sense that we use the multi-media and everything to tell more of a story," Davis begins.

"And, I think, from just a user-friendly thing, our shows are more suited toward a broad range of family members. You can take your 4-year-old, and they will be moved by and get something out of the show, and so will your grandpa and grandma."

Though there are two units of Mannheim Steamroller vying for audience favor now, Davis maintains a firm control over each one, writing, arranging and designing the entire multimedia concert concept.

Even while bound to his Nebraska farm by a neck brace and a right arm that isn't quite right yet.

"They're the exact same size and configuration. It's the exact same show. They both sound the same," he says.

As for the Chip-free concerts mandated by his condition?

"I don't think there's ever been an awareness of whether I'm physically there or not there," says Davis. "It's always been about the music you hear."

---

At a glance

What: Mannheim Steamroller

When: 7:30 p.m. April 3

Where: U.S. Cellular Coliseum, 101 S. Madison St., Bloomington

Tickets: $22 to $44

Box office number: (866) 891-9992