Treasure Island entertainment director Croop ‘just fell into’ job

Chip Croop doesn't believe in accidents.

Everything happens for a reason, says the 58-year-old Croop, the director of entertainment operations at Treasure Island. So when he says "I just fell into (the job) by accident," what he really means is he never imagined that he would end up in Vegas. Not when he planned on being a rock star. Or at least a successful musician.

"I think everyone, in the back of their mind, wants to be a rock star," Croop says. "But I pursued what I wanted to do at the time. I'm happy with the career path I've taken."

Croop grew up in Pompton Lakes, N.J., with an older sister, a mother who worked at Bell telephone and a father in real estate and insurance.

When he was 12 or 13, his parents bought him a guitar. He immediately went to work on his musical plans. Throughout high school, he played in garage bands with his friends, dreaming of hitting it big one day. His parents had another idea; they wanted him to become a doctor.

Instead, he ended up moving to Florida after graduating from high school to attend Miami Dade College. There he studied flight training and flew airplanes. Croop's father flew, and two uncles worked as pilots, one training 747 pilots and the other a captain for Northwest.

After a while, Croop's interest waned. He had always been shooting for the sky, but more in a metaphorical way. He moved to Colorado in the early 1970s to pursue a music career. Boulder seemed like a good place because housing was booming so he picked up odd jobs as a carpenter and lived with a group of musicians. After a couple of years playing the local music scene, Croop started realizing that he wasn't a great musician; the guys in his band were better.

Croop doesn't remember when he joined his band, but he remembers the night he stopped playing with them. It was a Saturday in 1977 at a bar on Pearl Street in Boulder.

"It started with an 'S.' Shannon's, maybe. Yeah, I think it was," Croop says.

They were performing to a big college crowd and hoped to impress management enough to get invited back the next weekend. In the past, the band had always taken a casual attitude toward their sound. They did what Croop calls "set it and forget it."

Now, a good sound guy is worth his weight in gold. He can balance the music and vocals so that what comes out is harmonious and pleasing to the ear. Really, the sound technician is underrated, Croop says. Since they wanted to be really good on this night, Croop decided to mix the audio and forgo his guitar.

"I had a technical background. Electronics is electronics," Croop says.

The night was a success, and, in the process, Croop had found his true calling. He gave up the rock star dream for another one: audio engineer.

"It was just my passion. Mixing audio, mixing a band, it's challenging," Croop says. "To be a good engineer, there's an art to it, a certain finesse to it. You're out there making this band sound great for all of these people that have paid money to see it. You want them to enjoy themselves. And knowing that you're making this happen, it was just a good feeling. I enjoyed that."

A drummer friend convinced Croop to try his luck in Los Angeles. So in 1977, he moved once again.

"No guts, no glory," Croop says of his move. "I just wanted to land something in music. And I did."

He had been living in the Green Gables Apartments near Paramount Studios for only a few weeks when he got his first break. His neighbor was the tour manager for Herbie Hancock and Natalie Cole. He gave Croop some contacts. Croop landed some road work with an up-and-coming singer named Richard Torrance. That led to studio work as a sound technician and, eventually, more road work with Sanford and Townsend of "Smoke from a Distant Fire" fame. Croop worked as a sound guy when the band toured with Fleetwood Mac during their Rumours tour.

In 1978, he met the band Little Feat and they asked him to go on the road with them.

To Croop, this was the most memorable part of his audio engineer career. He was mixing sound for one of the most respected bands in the world.

"They were like the musician's musicians band," Croop says. "It was a pleasure working with them. They were so well respected in the music industry, just being part of that creative process ... made an impact. Not that I was writing songs or playing in the band, but you're still part of it. You're there, part of that team helping make it happen."

But Croop's relationship with Little Feat ended with the death of its founder, Lowell George, in 1979.

Croop had a couple years' worth of experience by this time so he went on to work with some even bigger entertainers, including Prince, Earth, Wind and Fire, and James Taylor.

Eventually, the L.A. routine began to wear on Croop. Traffic was awful, and he was in it a lot, driving around to sound studios or producers' homes. He yearned for a simpler life. He wanted to buy a house and settle down.

In 1984, Croop came to Las Vegas to work some shows with Paul Anka at the Aladdin. Another technician told him to visit the entertainment director at the Golden Nugget; they were looking for an audio engineer. "I liked Las Vegas," Croop says. "There was so much going on, who wouldn't have liked that? It had a lot to offer."

Croop visited the Golden Nugget and was hired on the spot. He went back to L.A., packed his stuff and, three weeks later, became a Vegas resident at 30 years old. Within months, he bought a house right across from Rancho Bel Air. He got married and had a daughter.

While at the Golden Nugget, he mixed sound for Frank Sinatra, Dolly Parton, Lou Rawls, Kenny Rogers, George Strait, Tanya Tucker and others. It was a sound guy's dream to work with such headliners. But when he was offered a job at a new casino, Treasure Island, in 1993, Croop couldn't turn it down. At the time, there was nothing like it in Vegas. It had a live pirate show in front of the resort and a theater with the first local resident Cirque du Soleil show. He was the sound and video supervisor for the first year and then production manager of the original pirate show before becoming entertainment director in 1999.

The entertainment business is tough, Croop says. People often ask him how they can get into it and become an entertainment director for a Strip hotel. Or a sound guy.

"I got a lot of breaks," Croop says. "I think it's much harder today for younger people to get into the business."

Contact reporter Sonya Padgett at spadgett@ reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4564.