Phone Call Away from Greatness

By Wallace Baine

SANTA CRUZ LIVE - Santa Cruz Sentinal March 31, 2005

The difference between the iconic Jefferson Airplane and the obscure Sons of Champlin might have been one phone call.

Back during the Great San Francisco Psychedelic Music Era in the late 1960s, record companies, with dollar signs in their eyes, zeroed in on the San Francisco Bay Area bearing record deals. The Sons, who leaned more towards the R&B side than their psychedelic cohorts, came along behind the first wave of big-name acts.

Bill Champlin, the Sons' frontman and namesake, tells the story of the day that legendary industry mogul Clive Davis called for the Sons' manager.

"So Clive Davis is in San Francisco, and he was looking for a horn band to sign. So, he calls and says 'Hey, I'm over here at the Saint Francis. Why don't you come over, and we can talk?' (The manager) tells him, 'Well, I'm in my garden right now. Can I get back to you in a few days?'"

Davis never heard back and eventually signed another horn band, a group that came to be known as Chicago.

"That's just one in a long line of bad career moves," said Champlin who leads the reconstituted Sons into the Brookdale Lodge for a concert Friday. "We were always just behind the curve. When opportunity knocked on the door, we answered the phone."

The irony came full circle a decade later when the Sons went kaput and Champlin actually joined Chicago. Twenty-five years later, he's still tours with Chicago - recognized by Billboard magazine as the second most successful American rock band ever, behind only the Beach Boys. Chicago is Champlin's "day job," (he plays 80 to 120 gigs a year with the group) while the Sons remain his sideline passion.

"There's a certain number of people who might look at (the Sons) as some kind of nostalgic act," said Champlin. "You know: 'Let's go make some money because we're old.' We're none of that. This group musically is way ahead of the curve, and our shows are a guaranteed kick in the butt."

Champlin joined with several members of the original group to re-form the Sons back in 1997, attracting other serious musicians with rock, funk and jazz pedigrees. Today, he says the group is "Steely Dan with teeth."

That's a far cry from the group's roots back in the hippie era. The Sons never quite fit with the "psychedelic" label given to them and other groups such as Moby Grape and Quicksilver Messenger Service. Champlin was more inspired by James Brown and his singing style was more soul shouter than the other Bay Area groups.

But the group was riven by internal chaos, bad decisions and, sometimes, laughably bad luck. For instance, the Sons' first album, 1969's "Loosen Up Naturally," was derailed by an unintended obscenity on the album's cover.

"We had a giant blank window shade and some color pens, and we invited everyone who stopped by to sign it," said Champlin. "And we used that for the picture on the album cover. Well, some little old lady in Atlanta found an obscenity on the thing, and the next thing you know the record company is recalling all the unsold albums. They had to hire people to take the plastic wrap off every album and cover up the offending word one by one."

Champlin's love of soul has also attracted flak in the music industry, he said. The man who wrote the hit "After the Love is Gone" for Earth, Wind & Fire has often been criticized for his musical tastes. After the Sons disbanded back in 1977, Champlin went out looking for record-label attention.

"I was told, 'Your stuff's too black. You gotta whiten up.' Can you believe that?"

He knew a black country singer who was getting the inverse message, that he needed to "blacken up" his music.

"We thought about just switching names and albums," said Champlin.

The new Sons have been playing close to a decade, bringing in veteran session man Carmen Grillo, longtime guitarist for Tower of Power, and a former Santa Cruz resident. The group has recorded material for a new album and is currently doing some label shopping.

The Brookdale Lodge, in fact, holds real significance for Champlin as well. He spent a few years of his childhood in Brookdale, less than a mile from the old landmark inn. And, years later, having moved back to Santa Cruz County as an adult, was married at the Lodge (Champlin's daughter Amy was born in Santa Cruz at that period as well).

Looking back, Champlin is philosophical about the missteps that prevented the Sons from major musical success.

"Back then, it was just living one day at a time. Life was all about smoking pot and driving around Mount Tamalpais all day long."