Chesapeake was an Americana band formed in 1994 in Bethesda, Maryland. Three of the four members of Chesapeake were members of the bluegrass band The Seldom Scene at the time, and eventually left the Scene to devote their energies to Chesapeake full time.

Chesapeake was a difficult band to classify, as they pursued many musical styles, including bluegrass, progressive bluegrass, folk, folk-rock, country, rock music and more. Folk songwriters such as Tom Paxton and Steve Gillette influenced their music as well as well as rock performers like Van Morrison and Little Feat. Their music was defined by Mike Auldridge's Dobro, lap steel and pedal steel guitar as well as Klein's vocals. Later on the band started to add more percussion and drums to their music.

The difficulty in assigning the band's music to a niche for marketing purposes as well as the resentment of the more purist elements of the bluegrass audience who thought the new direction was a betrayal of their long time support proved a insurmountable impediment to commercial success. Members sometimes joked on stage about issuing a CD composed entirely of traditional fiddle tunes titled "OK, Fine" to mollify the purists, but the band closed up shop before it got to that point.

Members:
Moondi Klein - lead vocals, guitar
Mike Auldridge - Dobro, lap steel, pedal steel, guitar, vocals
Jimmy Gaudreau - mandolin, guitar, vocals
T. Michael Coleman - bass guitar, vocals

with

Pat McInerney - percussion, drums
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