Sons of Champlin leader excited about GP show

By Greg Hanberg
The Daily Courier April 12, 2005

Music lovers strap on your seat belts, The Sons of Champlin are coming to town. The longtime San Francisco band, playing an eclectic blend of blue-eyed soul, jazz, funk, R&B and rock, will bring their good vibes and positive energy to the Rogue Theater on April 16 for a fun-filled musical evening. Tickets are $25 in advance, $30 at the door.

"This band has some of the most amazing musicians on earth," said Bill Champlin, the band's Grammy-award winning singer-songwriter who plays guitar and keyboards. "Grants Pass is catching us at a really, really high point. I'm sure there will be some in the audience who don't know who we are, but it will be worth it to check us out."

The Sons were a mainstay of the Bay Area music scene in the 60s and 70s, a horn-based band in the heart of psychedelia. They played numerous shows in all of the area's famous venues with good friends the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Tower of Power, just to name three.

In a recent interview, Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart told the San Francisco Chronicle, "The Sons were a dance-your-brains-out-all-night-band and the most talented of all the bands. They played better than anybody."

The Sons of Champlin released seven albums between 1968 and 1977, most notably 1971's "Follow Your Heart" and 1973's " Welcome to the Dance." The Sons' brassy live act contained a healthy dose of long jams that, unlike many of their contemporaries, were professionally arranged and structurally tight.

"We're a jam-based band on one level and song-based on another level," said Champlin in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles home. "Our songs were basically a diving board that got us into the pool."

But unlike many notable bands of that era, the Sons of Champlin never became famous. They may have been ahead of their time and they didn't really seem to care if they were.

"Some of it was bad luck, some of it was smoking too much dope, and we had a bad attitude at an early age," said the 57-year-old Champlin. "We were also stupid in many ways. Every time opportunity knocked, we answered the phone."

In 1977, Champlin left for Los Angeles and found work right away as a singer and vocal arranger and worked in the studio with the likes of Al Jarreau, Elton John, Tom Scott, Herbie Hancock and Bette Midler. Later, he hit musical gold when he joined the successful ensemble band Chicago, singing some of the band's most memorable hits, including 1989's chart-topping single "Look Away." He also won two Grammy Awards for co-writing "Turn Your Love Around" for George Benson and "After the Love Has Gone" for Earth, Wind and Fire.

"Chicago is a great gig and when we tour we give the audience what they want to hear - all the hits," Champlin said. "With the Sons, each gig is a unique event. The audience won't know what's coming next and sometimes we don't either."

Joining Champlin on stage in the Sons are some top-notch musicians, including original members Geoff Palmer (keyboards, vibraphone, sax), David Schallock (bass) and James Preston (drums). They'll be joined by Mic Gillette (tuba, trumpet), from Tower of Power; Marc Russo (sax), from the Doobie Brothers; and longtime friend Carmen Grillo (guitar). Grillo joined after regular guitarist Tal Morris recently joined Creedence Clearwater Revisited.

The Sons recently released "Secret," a live California show from 2002, and are hoping to find a distributor for a new studio album that was recorded over parts of the last five years. Champlin will tour with the Sons through this month, take a month off, then join Chicago for a summer tour with Earth, Wind and Fire.

"I'm basically in two bands and I love them both for different reasons," Champlin said. "Both are still very musically valid."

Champlin says he can't wait to get to Southern Oregon again."The Sons are on fire right now," he said."I just know the Grants Pass show will be a good one."