Chiropractor, rock musician and community activist Dr. Timothy Bennett tends to a patient in his Rivers Avenue office.

Brad Nettles // The Post and Courier

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For Dr. Timothy Bennett, the task was to bring the structure of his life into harmonious alignment.

Being a chiropractor and a musician, he had the requisite techniques. But with a busy practice, a burgeoning performance and recording career, demanding community involvement and a family, it wasn't going to be easy.

That he has managed it, and continues to do so, isn't just a solo act.

"I have a lot of help," says Bennett, known on stage and CD as the rising Christian rock artist T Culler. "That, and time management, have been the key. But these last 2-3 years I've been booked very heavily, playing Friday, Saturday and Sunday and then racing back to work. I'm stretched about as thin as I can be right now and still pull everything off.

"I love my music, what I do here with my chiropractic patients and the work with the Rutledge House, a homeless shelter I established downtown five years ago. I want to continue to improve and make things better in all facets. So I just find a way."

One of three children born to Robert and Beverly Bennett, and destined to follow in his father's footsteps as chief of Bennett Chiropractic Center in North Charleston, Bennett's fortunes also are in sharp ascent as a rock musician and songwriter. A trio of his songs -- "Dreamer," "Nothing to Hide" and "Maybe Lord" -- were chosen for the soundtrack of the feature film "Stand Strong," released Oct. 12 on DVD. And recently he signed on with Tate Music Group, a national booking and management company.

Having Tate Music in his corner can only enhance his development as a recording artist, he says.

"The fact that they signed me is an acknowledgement that my music is being accepted at another level. That they're willing to put their resources behind me and help me develop anoth-

er record project with all that goes into it makes me very thankful. They say they can book me anywhere throughout the country or in Europe. I'm fairly seasoned at this point, and they seem to like that fact. "Right now, I'm just taking my time between all my other responsibilities and writing, writing.

Back to the future

Bennett started writing music at age 9, an accompaniment to piano lessons, but he had an independent streak that exerts itself to this day.

"I frustrated my teacher because I always wanted to do my own thing."

By the early '80s, then a promising vocalist, the 16-year-old Bennett was back to calling the shots with his music while also performing with such groups as the Charleston Symphony Singers Guild.

"My teacher at First Baptist, where I went to high school, introduced me to people from whom I could learn. Then when I went to Clemson University, I started playing rock, writing new music and almost immediately formed a band, a quartet called Fourplay. I ended up doing several hundred shows while I was there, honing my skills."

Toward the end of his college years he began composing Christian (rock) music, a field growing by leaps and bounds at the time.

"The music was getting so much better," Bennett recalls. "It definitely wasn't a hymn-based thing but a pop rock movement, and I was hooked."

Bennett graduated from Clemson in 1986 with a degree in political science, but immediately turned his eye to chiropractic.

"I had to make a decision between music and chiropractic. I thought I could do both, and wanted to, but it was a battle between taking over my father's chiropractic business, which he had here for a lot of years, and being a musician. Most of my bandmates had gone off to Nashville and elsewhere and become musicians, but I decided to go ahead and be a chiropractor."

Bennett earned a Doctor of Chiropractic degree (1990) from Life Chiropractic University in Marietta. Ga., and a certification as a chiropractic sports physician from New York Chiropractic College. For seven years, he tried to submerge the nagging desire to play music. He almost succeeded.

"I missed it so much. The idea was always in the back of my mind, especially when I had friends who were out making music. I'd turn on the TV and there they were, playing with Garth Brooks and others. I thought I'd gotten past it, finally. I had a wife and two kids. My chiropractic practice had gotten busy, and I had placed my full attention on making that a success."

Then Bennett was enticed to help start a music group with Tom Wood at Metro North Presbyterian Church in Goose Creek. He also agreed to be a music master at his own church, Charleston Baptist, handling contemporary music as well as traditional choral activities.

"Though my passion always leaned to pop music, I learned a lot doing this. That experience really made a difference for me," Bennett recalls.

And that was that. Music was back in his life, with a vengeance. The past four years have been like riding the whirlwind, with gusts of support from his wife, Teri, and their kids, Culler and Rhen.

Enter T Culler

Bennett soon hit the performance circuit and the recording studio, albeit as his "alter ego," employing his middle name for a stage moniker. Yet it was awhile before even good friends knew that he and T Culler were one and the same.

"I didn't want them to think I was going through a midlife crisis or something, nor did I want patients to fear I was leaving them or not giving them my full attention, so for a while I kept the two worlds separate."

His first Nashville recording gig, with producer Scotty Faircloth, gave birth to his debut CD, "Maybe Next Sunday," which was followed by "End of the Day." These have earned him two Momentum Award nominations for Male Artist of the Year and Song of the Year. But as gratifying as it is to have two successful CDs, says Bennett, nothing tops interacting with a live audience.

"When people know the song and start singing it back to you, that's a remarkable feeling. It's also great when they 'get it' and realize it's coming from your heart."

Working with a variety of sidemen, Bennett is nine songs into his third CD, determined that "each album be better than the last one."

Meanwhile, he pours his time, energy and money into managing the Rutledge House on Rutledge Avenue.

"The cause of homelessness in America is of great concern to me. At the Rutledge House, we are dealing with veterans, recovering drug addicts and others who are on the verge of getting their lives back together. So far, it's been me, my wife, Teri, and Bernetta Brantley running it. The first component is love, which they don't get a lot of, and then an acknowledgement that the past is the past. It's about moving forward, learning how to live your life and make better choices.

"It's an art. And if (they) can learn how to stop making the small mistakes, they can get back on their feet. Most of them have."

Bennett rejects the notion that those with whom he works are morally or constitutionally lesser people. "They are no different from me, or you. This can happen to anyone, and it can happen quickly."

His first two CDs were geared toward reaching people who are hurting, Bennett says. And proceeds from the music sales continue to pay Rutledge House's operating expenses -- for now.

"It takes a lot to run the Rutledge House. Every night, seven days a week, there is something going on. Everything I do in this music career, if it makes any money at all, is done to fund the house and try to help that cause."

For more on the Rutledge House, visit rutledgheouse.com.

Reach Bill Thompson at 937-5707.

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