Top Bay Area Band missed its bandwagon

Ken Garcia
Friday, October 25, 2002
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle.

There wasn't a lot that survived the period marked by the Summer of Love -- not the hippie movement, not the Day-Glo designs, not the free-love lifestyle, and most thankfully, not the blaring fashion.

But as Sunday's Civic Center party celebrating the 35th anniversary of that snapshot in time proved one aspect of the era has never gone out of style: the music.

During that magical period in San Francisco of the late '60s and early '70s, a weekly perusal of the headliners at local clubs offered such acts as Moby Grape, the Beau Brummels, Canned Heat, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Santana, Tower of Power, Sly Stone, Credence Clearwater Revival, the Quicksilver Messenger Service and, of course, the Grateful Dead. There were so many front-line rock acts that, quite naturally, some top-flight bands ended up confined to the dusty record bins of history.

For a lot of the Bay Area bands, their dreams went up in smoke, a fairly common fate for the times. For others, success came suddenly -- to the point where the only response was to put out as many songs as possible and ride the train until the music stopped.

The glut of great bands meant that some couldn't soar. Few acts underscored the randomness of success better than the Doobie Brothers and the Sons of Champlin, two classic Bay Area bands separated by about 75 miles and 50 million albums in record sales. They were both considered among the best live acts around, capturing a singular sound produced by a collection of great songwriters and musicians. Yet only one managed to snare a wide commercial audience; the other was undone by artistic missteps, quizzical management decisions and some hallucinogenic detours.

"When opportunity knocked, we just answered the phone," said Sons founder Bill Champlin, a member of Chicago for the past 21 years and a legendary studio session man. "We had this small pond that we lived in in Marin County and we never felt like we had to move out of it. But once the Doobies connected, there was just no stopping them."

This point was brought home with some searing notes earlier this month when the Sons and the Doobie Brothers shared a bill at the annual B.R. Cohn Charity Music Festival, a concert in Glen Ellen that raised money for a variety of charities, primarily Camp Sunburst, a nonprofit organization that holds camps in Sonoma and Livermore for children with AIDS.

Both bands were in fine form as nearly 2,000 people enjoyed the intimate B. R. Cohn Winery amphitheater show against the backdrop of vineyards in the midday heat. Cohn himself is a testament to the success of the Doobie Brothers.

The Lincoln High School graduate from San Francisco started managing the group 32 years ago and turned his passion for music and grapes into an award- winning winery that he opened in 1984.

The Doobie Brothers' remarkable run started in 1970 when the San Jose group founded by Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons landed a record deal with Warner Brothers based on their demo tape. Within two years they had a string of top- selling hits including "Listen to the Music," "Rocking Down the Highway," "China Grove" and "Long Train Running."

"The thing that stands out for me is that I didn't care if we ever made it, I was just having fun playing the music," Johnston said. "I was still going to San Jose State and having a great time. It was still a novelty to us to hear our songs on the radio.

"But once things took off, you couldn't stop. If we weren't on the road we were in the studio and there was pressure to keep writing more hits. And after a while, it began to take its toll."

Johnston left the band in 1977, replaced by silky-voiced Michael McDonald, and the band had several more hits, include the No. 1 song "Taking It to the Streets." By 1982 the group finally called it quits, although a 1987 reunion tour convinced the band to record a new album and continue touring.

The fate of the Sons offers a more cautionary tale about the music business.

Although musicians like Van Morrison extolled their virtues and virtuosity, the band could never make the leap to commercial success. The Marin band (Champlin attended Tamalpais High School) put out a classic debut album in 1969, "Loosen Up Naturally," containing period anthems like "Freedom" and "Get High." Yet the 15-minute songs that Champlin favored were far from radio- friendly, and the band's pursuit of art did not extend to building a wide fan base -- their first album contained neither a picture of the band members nor even their names.

"When we did our first album, Capitol said they were going to set us up with a producer," Champlin said. "But by the time we got one, we had already done all the arranging and recording ourselves so we just handed him the tape and said here it is. After that, we just couldn't make a connection and the Sons never could get over the hump."

Seven albums later, the band broke up and Champlin moved to Los Angeles to begin working as a studio musician and songwriter, penning two Grammy-winning songs for George Benson and Earth, Wind and Fire and later hooking up with the pop merchants Chicago.

But even 50 million records apart, the two bands are tied together in Bay Area legend, one an astute hit factory and the other one of best bands hardly known.

The Sons never had sales but they will always have one distinction. When "Get High" was becoming a popular hit on the landmark FM radio stations such as KSAN and KMPX, the FCC raised its censorship flags and yanked it from the airwaves.

"We were one of the first records pulled by the FCC," Champlin said. "And at the time we thought it was pretty cool. There we were, proudly digging our own exile."