Actor and musician Chip Esten plays for a patient at HCA Chippenham Hospital. (Photo by Dusty Barker courtesy Musicians on Call)
Chip Esten’s Hollywood career has taken him to lots of places: Los Angeles; Nashville, Tennessee; and, most recently, the Outer Banks of North Carolina. But the William & Mary graduate owes his interest in playing live music — a helpful skill for his roles on ABC’s “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and “Nashville” — to his time in a college band that frequently performed in Richmond.
The Virginia native, also a recording and touring artist known as Charles Esten, returned to Richmond for a different kind of gig this summer, swapping an audience of undergrads for patients at HCA Chippenham Hospital as part of the health network’s partnership with the nonprofit Musicians On Call.
“In hospitals, it can get hard and get tough; there’s a seriousness that’s hard to avoid,” says Esten, who went through a family medical journey of his own when his daughter (now cancer free) was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 2. “Playing music like this, being there with patients, it’s a level of care that elevates things.”
The Nashville-based organization coordinates volunteer musicians and nonmusician guides to visit partner hospitals nationwide and play bedside for patients. HCA Healthcare, which hosts volunteers at HCA hospitals throughout the country, brought Musicians On Call to Virginia with another visit to Chippenham Hospital in the fall of 2024 and celebrated the Richmond expansion with Esten, a board member, in late June.
“It’s a healing modality. It’s been wonderful to hear our patients’ stories of what music does for them while they’re cared for,” says Lance Jones, CEO of HCA’s Chippenham and Johnston-Willis hospitals.
Many of the musicians build set lists based on patient requests and play a variety of instruments. Esten’s visit included a public performance for hospital staff and visits to five patient rooms across care units, where he played requests ranging from country classics to modern pop hits.
“It’s really special to me that music brought me all the way back here to where I first played music out at a bar or a fraternity party,” Esten says. “There’s a kindness here in patients, their families and the staff that is really special.”
Midlothian residents Mark Whitacre and Pam McGhee became volunteers for Musicians On Call in late 2024 after seeing news of the expansion on social media. The duo, like all volunteers with the organization, work in a buddy system; Pam coordinates visits and joins as Mark plays songs on guitar for interested patients.
“Getting to see people forget what’s on their mind, even for the moment, is just wonderful,” McGhee says. “It’s also helpful for their families to be around something uplifting, something else.”
One of Esten’s last visits of the day included a request for “hair band” music, an unexpected and exciting moment for Esten. He launched into “Sister Christian” and “Wanted Dead or Alive,” and the patient sang along to every word from her bed.
“There have been times where I’m sitting beside a patient’s bed, whether it’s a veteran or a child or somebody in a cancer ward or even in hospice, where I thought to myself, ‘Oh, this is why I learned how to play guitar,’” Esten says. “This is why I learned music, because this is a connection that is unlike any other.”
