Bill Champlin's 28 Years with Chicago
An Appreciation of the Singer, Guitarist and Keyboardist
Oct 7, 2009
This past August, longtime Chicago band member Bill Champlin announced his departure from the celebrated rock group to concentrate on a solo career. Before Champlin joined, Chicago's future was fraught with uncertainty. In the late guitarist Terry Kath's absence, the fateful disco-stained Chicago 13 and the commercial failure of Chicago XIV were derailing the band’s stature. The ill-fitting Donnie Dacus was in and out quickly as the third vocalist.
Enter Champlin, who joined Chicago in 1981 at a fortuitous time. It coincided with a switch in record labels and a partnership with mega-producer David Foster, the architect of Chicago’s 1980s renaissance. Bill Champlin’s valuable contributions to the band are worth a bit more than a passing glance.
From Sons of Champlin to Chicago: Resurgence with Peter Cetera
Champlin’s first album with Chicago, Chicago 16 (1982), was the group’s first Foster production. Nobody could escape the two blockbuster hits, “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” and “Love Me Tomorrow.” Peter Cetera, though, sang lead on both. In an MTV-centric music industry, Cetera fast became the frontman for Chicago in the first half of the 1980s, relegating the rest of the group to bit players in videos as Cetera took most of the screen time.
But Champlin marks his territory right away here, tag-teaming vocals with Cetera on the funky “Bad Advice” and taking over himself on underrated deep cuts “Follow Me,” co-written with drummer Danny Seraphine, and “Sonny Think Twice,” with Cetera entering in on the coda.
Chicago 17 was one of the biggest albums in the hyper-competitive year of 1984, with four singles enjoying heavy airplay. Cetera sang them all except for sharing vocal duties with Champlin on “Hard Habit to Break” (a song, by the way, that rubbed elbows in September 1984 with “Drive” by The Cars, “Cover Me” by Bruce Springsteen, “Missing You” by John Waite, “Lucky Star” by Madonna and “I Just Called to Say I Love You” by Stevie Wonder in a particularly stacked month).
With Cetera stealing the show, Champlin co-wrote two other tracks with more harmonic sophistication and horn lines reminiscent of the Chicago albums of the 1970s. “We Can Stop the Hurtin’,” a sort of social call-to-arms, is a song he co-wrote with Robert Lamm, who lends his reliable vocals; and “Please Hold On,” in which Champlin shares writing credits with Foster and Lionel Richie, is a laid-back shuffler that especially showcases Champlin’s voice.
He also sings in “Only You” and “Once in a Lifetime,” but “Please Hold On” is Champlin’s centerpiece in Chicago 17.
Chicago 19: Champlin’s Breakthrough
Cetera split with Chicago in 1985, to be replaced for Chicago 18 (1986) by Jason Scheff, whose nearly 24-year tenure far exceeds Cetera’s even though he’s still “the new guy.”
Champlin once again assumed a secondary role in the band’s major hit from the album, “Will You Still Love Me.” The song all but cemented Chicago as go-to production-heavy balladeers, a formula that succeeded yet strayed from the edginess and invention of earlier Roman-numeral Chicago efforts.
Teaming with Foster again to write another track, Champlin sang lead for “It’s Alright,” perhaps the hardest-rocking song on the album next to the misguided reworking of “25 or 6 to 4.”
It’s with the release of Chicago 19 (1988) that Champlin asserted himself. He sang all three of the Chicago 19 top-10 hits – the Diane Warren-penned “I Don’t Wanna Live Without Your Love” and “Look Away” as well as “You’re Not Alone.”
The only problem with those power-ballad songs is the pronounced lack of horns. That is remedied somewhat when Champlin lets loose on “Come In from the Night,” arguably one of the best songs on the album, and when he duets with Scheff on “Runaround,” which they wrote together.
The hits ceased as music was undergoing more sea changes in the 1990s and Chicago fell out of favor. Twenty-1 (1991) kept the blueprint from the previous albums, but netted nothing in terms of a hit record.
True to form, though, Champlin’s songs are the most effective, from the horn-free “Somebody Somewhere” to the horn-drenched “Who Do You Love.” He takes the wheel yet again on the two songs Warren wrote for the band, “Explain It to My Heart” (with Scheff) and “Chasin’ the Wind.” And his contemplative “Holdin’ On” rounds out the album.
Stone of Sisyphus and Chicago XXX
On the much-ballyhooed Stone of Sisyphus, which came out only last year yet languished in record-label purgatory since its recording in 1993, Champlin pretty much takes over the last third of the album with terrific vocal arrangements and solid songwriting: “Plaid,” a scathing indictment of the music industry (with the lyric “just play what they all would find”), “Cry for the Lost” and “The Show Must Go On.”
When Chicago returned to the studio for Chicago XXX (2006) to record new stuff for the first time since Stone of Sisyphus, the prize for most ambitious track had to go to Champlin’s “Already Gone.” Clocking in at just under seven minutes (like the old days), there’s an orchestral break of sorts with Lee Loughnane on muted trumpet and Walt Parazaider on flute, and an outro for the horns that’s hardly ever given to them.
Champlin shows off his writing versatility with straight rock (“Where Were You” with Scheff) and the blues/R&B hybrid “Better” (another fine multi-track vocal arrangement).
Champlin’s New Focus: More Solo Material
It’s a huge loss for Chicago, but Champlin’s exit may be understandable. He seemed anchored to his keyboard at times onstage and in television appearances, and the band’s relentless touring schedule may have cramped his solo career. His latest, No Place Left to Fall, is his first solo album in 14 years. The song “Never Been Afraid” has backing vocals from none other than Peter Cetera.
Keyboardist and Grammy nominee Lou Pardini takes his place in the band. But Champlin’s musical shoes, with Chicago and beyond, are large and wide.
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