Bill Champlin Albums (7)
'No Place Left to Fall'
Release Date 9/24/2008
Tracks 24
Label JVC Japan
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What The Critics Say
Having waited 13 years between solo albums, Bill Champlin undoubtedly had a lot he wanted to say. And so, on No Place Left to Fall, he pretty much says it all, wrangling his various influences and tying them together neatly on what may just be his definitive personal statement. When Champlin first came to prominence in the '60s as singer and keyboardist for the San Francisco staples the Sons of Champlin, he made it immediately clear that his interests were not like those of the other local bands: with an R&B-inspired horn section, prominent organ, and devotion to soul, the Sons of Champlin were miles away from what contemporaries like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane were turning out. Yet they shared billings at the same ballrooms and were accepted by the hippie throngs, even if the Sons never established much of a reputation outside of their home base. In 1981, Champlin surprised his fans by taking a gig as the newest member of Chicago, which undoubtedly gave him more exposure and a larger paycheck, but he's still remained largely under the radar during that lengthy stint, his name unknown to all but the group's most devoted fans. That group's pop influence and commercial sensibilities surface in No Place Left to Fall's polished arrangements and lack of rough edges, but the R&B roots are never far from the surface -- Champlin sounds comfortable within these songs. Even the sheen of the Diane Warren-authored acoustic, harmonies-drenched version of "Look Away" -- a remake of the song Champlin and Chicago took to number one in 1988 -- now seems to fit him well, whereas on the hit his involvement felt forced. That track is hardly the most notable on the new record, though -- the opening "Total Control," a solid piece of funk 'n' roll featuring Champlin on the Hammond B-3, is reminiscent of the Sons at their best, while "Angelina" injects a country feel into a good-time tune about the kind of woman who will always mystify the male species. "Tuggin' on Your Sleeve," with a backbeat that can't be beat, is something of a family affair, with son Will Champlin handling the Wurlitzer piano and Bill's wife, Tamara Champlin, among the background singers. Physical copies of the CD come with a bonus DVD including a documentary on the making of the album, live footage, and more. ~ Jeff Tamarkin, All Music Guide
'Through It All'
Release Date 8/15/1996
Tracks 10
Label Turnip The Music Group
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What The Critics Say
On his third solo album, Burn Down the Night (1992), Bill Champlin made a far more personal and serious statement than he had on his two more commercially oriented efforts from a decade or more earlier. Through It All, following two years later, seemed to split the difference. On the one hand, Champlin deliberately looked back to his days of the late '70s and early '80s, when he was spending his time in Los Angeles recording studios as a background singer and getting his songs covered by a variety of performers. At the album's outset, he took back for his own his compositions "I Must Have Been a Fool," initially cut by Al Jarreau on his 1988 album Heart's Horizon, and "Turn Your Love Around," a Top Five hit for George Benson in 1981-1982 that won Champlin his second Grammy Award for Best Rhythm & Blues Song. Later, he presented a new version of "In the Heat of the Night," the 1967 movie title song written by Quincy Jones and Alan and Marilyn Bergman, which he had been heard singing week after week on the 1988-1994 TV series (making it probably his best-known vocal performance even if, as usual, most people didn't know it was him). Elsewhere, however, he continued with some of the more socially conscious music he had performed on Burn Down the Night, particularly "Proud of Our Blindness," the lengthy "Sound of the Rain" (an attack on televangelists), and the caustic album closer, "Light Up the Candles." He also found room for some effective ballads, however, notably the melodic title song, which was easy to imagine as an adult contemporary hit, if it had the right promotion. On a limited budget, he used fewer extra musicians than on previous albums and relied more heavily on synthesizers (for example, no drummer was credited). But that didn't keep him from turning out a quality effort. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'Mayday: Bill Champlin Live'
Release Date 1/1/1996
Tracks 14
Label Champlin
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What The Critics Say
Bill Champlin's solo albums of the 1990s, recorded for Japanese release and licensed to European and American companies, created a demand for live performances that he began to satisfy by undertaking tours when he wasn't busy with his duties as a member of Chicago. In May 1996, following a Swedish tour, he booked a couple of days at the Leeds Rehearsal Facility in North Hollywood, CA, to document his live show, presented here. Thus, the applause is sparse (it sounds like the listeners couldn't number much more than a couple of dozen at best), but the playing is hot. Champlin is generous in showcasing the members of his band -- Greg Mathieson on keyboards, Tom Saviano on saxophone and keyboards, Jerry Lopez on guitar, Rochon Westmoreland on bass, Eddie Garcia on drums, and Tamara Champlin, Champlin's wife, on background vocals. There are lengthy solos for all of the musicians, and even the vocals are up for grabs, with Lopez taking over lead singing here and there, and Tamara Champlin getting to sing a song, the rousing rocker "Backstreets of Paradise," from her 1995 album You Won't Get to Heaven Alive. None of the guest shots keep Champlin from dominating the proceedings, however, as he selects songs from throughout his career. The opening song, "Party Time in D.C.," is a lively tune with lyrics taking exception to political corruption, drawn from his most recent solo album, 1995's He Started to Sing. There are other songs from this phase of his career, but he also looks back to the early days of his solo work in the early '80s for the Kenny Loggins collaboration "Take It Uptown." The performance of "In the Heat of the Night" serves as reminder that it was Champlin's Ray Charles-style vocal that introduced the TV series from 1988 to 1994. And he finally puts on disc a performance of "After the Love Has Gone," his Grammy-winning composition for Earth, Wind & Fire (although, oddly, the title is listed as "After the Love Is Gone," which is also how he sings it). And at the end, he goes all the way back to the Sons of Champlin for "Goldmine," which becomes the stretching-out number for the band, incorporating solos from most of the players. Thus, in 70-plus minutes, Champlin turns in a career summary that knits together his funky, white-soul approach to pop music over the decades. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'He Started to Sing'
Release Date 1/1/1994
Tracks 10
Label Turnip the Music Group
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What The Critics Say
Bill Champlin, leader of the Sons of Champlin from 1965 to 1977 and a singer/keyboardist in Chicago starting in 1982, got a new lease on life, or at least on his intermittent solo career, in the early '90s when he began to make recordings for Japanese firms. He Started to Sing, his second album for the Japanese Polystar label (licensed to other labels around the world) and fifth solo album overall, again allows him to do as he likes, as he makes clear in the title song, which leads off the disc. A companion piece and update to his 1982 song "Runaway" (which, in turn, was the title song and lead-off track of his second album), it is a musical autobiography written in the third person, telling the story of a man buffeted by other people's expectations who manages to become his own person. Just as "Runaway" described his decision to leave the Sons of Champlin and the Bay Area for a solo career in Los Angeles, "He Started to Sing" describes Champlin's liberation from the demands of pop commercialism: "Never again will he beg to be heard by the powers that be/Never again will he change all his words, 'cause he's gotta be free/He's been there before, and he's learned to ignore what they want him to see/He'll write down the truth, and he'll sing it to you, you don't have to agree." Having begun with such a statement of purpose, Champlin turns in his most musically varied collection. Unlike his previous album, Through It All, which relied primarily on synthesizers, He Started to Sing employs a large, familiar cast of session musicians and singers, and Champlin uses the company to try some different styles. "Love Is Gonna Find You," a duet with his wife Tamara Champlin, takes on jazz-rock fusion, while "Southern Serenade," their second duet (which they also co-wrote) is, as its title suggests, a gospel-influenced Southern rock ballad in which an L.A. expatriate pays tributes to Southern roots. "God Sent Angels" is given a world music arrangement; "Sex Thang" boasts a funky bass introduction and jazzy horns; and the romantic ballad "Someone Else" has a largely acoustic setting, including a nice acoustic guitar solo by Champlin at the start. Under the heading of writing down the truth, "It's About Time" is a lecture directed at someone about the importance of freedom, while the most explicitly political statement comes in "Party Time in D.C." The latter song's music is very much influenced by the sort of jazz vocal style of Take 6 and the Manhattan Transfer. The lyrics may refer to the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress, and are among Champlin's most caustic: "Once again, the power will change hands/The winners have made plans/For the profit margin/Freedom always comes in last/It's gonna happen fast/Pretty soon it's gone." As the album's title implies, whatever the musical style, the dominant sound on the album is Champlin's voice, which ranges from the gritty, soulful approach he often takes on the rhythm tunes to a clean, crooning baritone on the ballads. Chicago, which constitutes Champlin's day job, may have retreated from the forefront of musical creativity, but He Started to Sing demonstrates that he continues to seek his own path as an individual. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Bill Champlin served as lead singer, primary songwriter, keyboard player, rhythm guitarist, and occasional saxophonist in the Bay Area band the Sons of Champlin from 1965 to 1977, shepherding the middle-level San Francisco rock group through seven modestly selling albums. In August 1977, he quit the band that bore his name and moved to Los Angeles, where he became a busy session singer. Not surprisingly, that soon led to his own solo recording contract and his debut album, Single. To anyone expecting acid rock from a veteran hippie musician, however, Champlin announces his change of direction on the album cover, an elaborately staged photograph of him admiring himself in a three-sided mirror, dressed in a tuxedo, his hair and beard fashionably trimmed, as a cadre of tailors tries to tempt him with more colorful fabrics and outfits. The picture is a signal on which the album follows through, although those who bought the Sons of Champlin's last three albums, The Sons of Champlin, A Circle Filled with Love, and Loving Is Why will not be greatly shocked. Single is simply an extension of those LPs, which were moving in a more commercial direction already. Champlin had hooked up with producer David Foster to write and record a collection of love songs very much in the mold of Boz Scaggs' blue-eyed soul blockbuster Silk Degrees. Lead-off track and single release "What Good Is Love" has a loping disco beat, and the rest of the album consists of sleek -- and sometimes slick -- '70s white R&B, as played by a cast of Los Angeles studio pros including all six of the future members of Toto. The punchy horns are arranged by Jerry Hey, the sweeping string charts by Marty Paich, and the background vocals are handled by a team that includes Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers and Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates. At the center of it all is Champlin, whose soulful, rhythmic voice ranges from a tender tenor to a gruff baritone, sometimes in the same line. The songs don't have much to say; in clichéd language, Champlin is either complaining about love gone bad or celebrating love that's going well. This is an album concerned with style, not substance, and it is a state-of-the-art example of studio craft, circa 1978. So, why didn't anybody buy it? Probably because it went almost completely unpromoted. (Champlin did undertake a brief tour, but that was about it.) While nominally speaking "commercial," this is not the kind of music that sells itself, and no one seems to have worked very hard to sell it. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Bill Champlin has made his mark in music largely as a member of the groups the Sons of Champlin (1965-1977) and Chicago (since 1982). But he has also been a singer and musician for hire, with sideman credits on numerous albums and lots of other moonlighting work. In the late '70s and early '80s, in between his band affiliations, he even made a couple of solo albums, and his solo career was reawakened, offshore anyway, when "The Night," a song he cut for a Japanese commercial, became a hit in Japan, leading to the Far Eastern release of a 1990 EP, No Wasted Moments. Now, another Japanese firm has financed a whole Champlin album (which he has licensed to companies in other countries, including the independent label Turnip the Music Group in the U.S.). Burn Down the Night, originally released in 1992, may come as a surprise to the relatively few fans who have heard his first two solo discs, not to mention those psychedelic stalwarts who followed the Sons of Champlin. Working with co-producer Greg Mathieson, who also co-wrote some of the material, Champlin came up with a much more substantive batch of songs and performed them in a synth rock style that has some elements of his characteristic white soul approach (especially in his always expressive vocals), but aims for a contemporary sound. The ten-song collection basically breaks down into three groups of three, plus a climax. In the first three songs, Champlin is concerned with philosophical and political matters. "Highest Stakes" is a tribute to the younger generation, expressing hope that it will clean up the mess left by its predecessors. "The Thunder," a ballad dominated by Champlin's guitar interplay with the Sons of Champlin's lead guitarist, Terry Haggerty, is another, more general song of affirmation and camaraderie. "For Less than a Song," on the other hand, is a political diatribe that indicts a comfortable public for tolerating corruption, a song hard to misinterpret in the 12th year of Republican presidential administrations. The second group of three consists of songs describing a woman or (more likely) women in the third person. "She," "a Wall Street social climber" in "Headed for the Top," comes in for strong criticism. The "she" of "When Love Comes Around" is depressed, however, and the singer bucks her up. The singer is involved with the "she" of "Still Worth Saving," although he questions that association before coming to the conclusion in the title. The pronouns shift to "you" in the album's third trilogy, beginning with "Same Old Song," which is explicitly addressed to the members of Chicago, but could as easily be self-directed. Champlin joined the band in time for its second popular renaissance in the early '80s, but stayed on to see it become passé, and he clearly isn't happy about it. "Maybe we can last forever," he sings, referencing the title of a Chicago single, "if we close our eyes together." The second and third "you" songs, "In Love Too Long" and "First and Last," are more conventional love songs. The final song, "Fly by the Light," might be classified as another "you" love song, but it is on another level, a more particular statement with more anthemic music, co-written by Champlin and his wife, the singer Tamara Champlin, making for an uplifting finish. Champlin has spent much of his career concerning himself with whether or not to make commercial music. Burn Down the Night isn't uncommercial, by any means, but it is a far more substantial and personal statement than any he has made before, while maintaining the outstanding musical chops he has displayed as a singer and instrumentalist all along. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
