BC on "Goin' Solo" show
Sunday, May 4 - 7pm EST, Bill will be featured on a show titled "Goin' Solo" on 106.5 WMEX, part of a series called The Forgotten 45s, which unearths some of music's greatest forgotten treasures. Though not an interview, it will be web streamed on their website at: www.1065wmex.com
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NEW BC DEMOS POSTED
Just push PLAY on our player above.

BILL ON INSIDE MUSICAST
2.22.08 Inside Musicast welcomes Bill Champlin.
Click here

NEW PRESS ARTICLE
Check out Press page for new press from Marin Nostalgia! Click here to view full article with photos.

BC INTERVIEW
Bill was interviewed in September of 2007 by Joel Selvin on KSAN Radio, 107.7 FM. He talks of his life with the Sons and solo. Click here to stream the interview

photo by Bobby G

Listen to the latest demos on the player above - just push play!

"Love Will Take You "
This song was cut with Greg Mathieson for his "West Coast Grooves" album. The album also contains an instrumental version of "Party Time in DC", by Greg and me, and "Foreign Fire", which you may have heard on bc.net or MySpace lately. Greg and I have a habit of coming up with really cool stuff, and working with him is one of the main things I miss about LA; writing and recording with Greg is worth fighting traffic for. Anyway, we cut the stuff on MOTU 2408 and it was mixed by Tommy Vicari, who engineered and mixed the "Burn Down The Night" album. He's one of the best in the business. If I'm not mistaken, the players on this tune and "Foreign Fire" are Abe Laboriel--Bass, Vinnie Colliuta--Drums, Mike Landau--Guitar and Greg on all Keys. I stacked the vocals, as usual, and really enjoyed the extra input from Greg on the voicings; I usually do that stuff by myself, but when there is another great set of ears in the room I don't have to search as much as usual. We kinda' had Al Jarreau in mind for this, but I'm not sure if Al ever heard it. Sometimes the guy who should hear a song is the last one in line; weird, huh? Or, maybe Al heard it and didn't like it. Ahhh, the music biz. We're talking about re-releasing "Burn Down The Night" soon, and will probably add these two pieces to the album as bonus tracks. Anyway, enjoy.

“Mirrors On My Shoes”
This one speaks for itself. It's part of the "I don't really care if it's commercial" phase of Bruce Gaitsch's and my songs. It's in the same mode as "So Far Gone", which may have been posted a while back. Bruce and I have been writing on and off for years, and we always seem to come up with some cool stuff. Actually, when the new album comes out you'll hear a handful of songs by Bruce, George Hawkins Jr. and me. "We played on the CD so we wrote a bunch of it", or is it, "We wrote a bunch of it so we played on the CD?" Ahhh, chickens and eggs. Anyway, this is cut against a drum loop, and we never got around to sending it to Billy Ward to put drums on it like we did with "So Far Gone". The tune's still pretty cool, though. We did get George to come in and play bass on it; man, that guy is awesome, always the right thing for the song. Wait 'til you hear George on the album; he owns it. So, I stacked a ton of backgrounds 'cause I was just in the mood for a background thang. I may have overdone it, but then, it's me, Bill; overdoing it is the story of my life. The lyrics are an attempt at something light, and I think we may have overdone that, but we were laughing when we wrote it. At that time Bruce and I seemed to need a chuckle, so this worked for that. Anyway, once again it's a bit loose, but it's there for what it's worth. I think there is so much attention paid to "Play your hits" around here that swimming upstream feels kinda' good. I did a Writers in the Round last year that was full of so many hits by the other guys that I dug in for my most eclectic jazzy stuff (that I could barely play), just to confuse the hell outta' the audience. It worked really well. So, sue me. Have fun.

"Between You and Me"
I've been writing songs with Don Somerville on and off for almost 10 years, and it's a whole different process when we work together. Usually Don already has lyrics done, or close, and my job is to lay them into a musical bed and place a melody against a progression. I used to be kinda' lazy with his stuff and just did piano/vocal demos, once again just to remember the song. I even did one at a Chicago gig in the afternoon and asked the front-of-house engineer to record it; hey, it worked. Anyway, Don has been more active in the production world and these songs have been in need of better demos, so I cut this and a few others in the last month. I'm still lazy about using drum loops, instead of cutting real drums, 'cause it's still a demo. Anyway, this one had a gospel feel and I figured my B-3 to be a must. We wrote some lyrics over the signature piano/organ part for backgrounds, which I stacked against a simple sequence, then added instruments after vocals. My son, Will, engineered this and I played all the stuff, guitars and keys. A good friend here in Nashville, James Matchak, heard it and said, "Lemme mix that for you." He's a great studio musician and engineer, so I said, "SURE". Beats the hell out of my ugly mixes. So, this is what we came up with. Here 'tis:

"I Can Talk About Love"
This song started with a piano lick that I had been playing for a good while, but never found a good melody for it. I had a writing date with a guy I'd met at a writer's convention in California, named "Big" Al Anderson. Al has co-written a lot with Vince Gill and, I think, plays with Vince's band. He's quite a good guitar player and a great writer. He was with NRBQ way early in their career, and has a great feel for melodies and lyrics, too. I always seem to gravitate to the player/singer/writer to work with. Something about playing a lot gives a writer a little insight into what does and doesn't work. Anyway, Al is a kick. The demo was cut against a drum loop and my son, Will, played the guitars, slide and rhythm, as well as bass. I did the pianos. I wanted to keep this as simple as possible, so I laid out on background vocals and let the lead take it. It's the roughest of mixes and is cut more to just remember the song than as a "Performance". I just thought I'd throw it in for something a little different. Loose as a goose. Enjoy it, if you can get past my basic laziness in cutting demos. I always thought that the looser the song demo the more the guy you're selling it to can improve on it. Nowadays, most people expect fully-produced demos that sound just like the record probably will. I still like a piano vocal, but the industry seems to expect slicker productions. It seems that guesswork isn't allowed anymore in the "Biz". Oh well, "Old School" and all that.