In 1973, the band Chicago had a memorable year. Their album "Chicago VI" hit No. 1 that summer and that album spawned a pair of Top 10 hits -- "Feelin' Stronger Every Day" and "Just You 'N Me."
Both those songs had lead vocals done by the same man: Bass guitarist Peter Cetera. As a matter of fact, Cetera sang the full lead vocal or shared lead vocals on the Top 10 hits "25 Or 6 To 4" and "Saturday In The Park." But starting with that sixth Chicago album, Cetera became more the front-and-center guy on lead vocals, especially on the hits. And between 1973-79, Cetera had all or shared lead vocals on all the band's Top 40 hits with the exception of Robert Lamm's lead vocal on "Harry Truman" in 1975. Cetera sang the lead vocal on the band's first No. 1 hit, "If You Leave Me Now," in 1976.
All the while, the band cranked out one hit after another. But that all changed on the night of January 23, 1978. It was that night that Terry Kath, the band's lead guitarist and sometimes lead vocalist, most memorably on the band's hits "Make Me Smile," "Color My World" and "Free," was found dead in his Woodland Hills, Calif., home from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, just one week before he would turn 32 years old.
The loss of Kath to the band was devastating, so much so that the band even talked about disbanding. They chose not to. And one person close to the band made a phone call to a man he thought could come in and help the band move forward.
He was a 30-year-old session singer named Bill Champlin, who left the group he formed, The Sons of Champlin, in 1977 for a solo career which started with his move from his native Oakland, Calif., to Los Angeles and working alongside such men as producers Jay Graydon and David Foster and artists Steve Lukather (of Toto), Boz Scaggs, Elton John, Al Jarreau and The Tubes. The caller suggested Champlin come in to audition for the part in the group, but since the call came the day after Kath's passing and Champlin wasn't ready to join a band, he passed.
Meanwhile, Chicago found their replacement at lead guitar and vocalist when they hired Texan Donnie Dacus, who shared lead vocals with Cetera on the next two Top 40 hits by the band -- "Alive Again," a song that served as a tribute to Kath, and the ballad "No Tell Lover," both songs peaking at No. 14 in 1978 and '79, respectively, and both coming from the first non-Chicago Roman numeral album, "Hot Streets."
However, there was a discomfort between the band and Dacus and after recording their 13th album in 1979, they released Dacus. He would be replaced by another guitarist, Chris Pinnick, and full-time lead vocals were taken over by Cetera by 1980. But within a year, the band would be released by long-time employer Columbia Records, who said their hit-making days were long behind them.
So in 1981, the band found a new home with Warner Brothers and found a new producer after years of working with James William Guercio. Foster, a Canadian musician, was brought in to resurrect Chicago's career. And immediately, the first change Foster made was quick: He brought in Champlin to serve as a keyboardist, guitarist and sometimes lead singer.
The horn sound that made Chicago famous was being pushed to the back burner and synthesizers as well as session musicians (including those from the band Toto) were brought in to make what would be Chicago's "comeback" album "Chicago 16," featuring the band's second No. 1 hit, "Hard To Say I'm Sorry," featuring Cetera on lead vocal.
But Foster wanted more from Champlin. Champlin came to the group winning a pair of Grammy Awards for songwriting -- he co-wrote the 1979 No. 2 hit for Earth, Wind & Fire, "After The Love Has Gone" with Graydon and Foster and in 1982, he co-wrote George Benson's No. 5 smash "Turn Your Love Around" with Graydon and Lukather. He also recorded vocals for REO Speedwagon's 1979 album, "Nine Lives." He was an on-demand session singer that many acts wanted, yet, here he was in a band that he really hadn't quite felt comfortable being in yet and actually turned down being in years earlier. When Champlin joined the band in 1981, he left a very comfortable position as the music director of the ABC late-night show called "Fridays."
Foster was pulling the strings by now and in the summer of 1983, the band went back into the studio to record "Chicago 17." Champlin wrote or co-wrote three songs on the album, compared to just one on "Chicago 16." On "Chicago 16," he shared lead vocals with Cetera on two songs and sang lead on the other two songs, but none of those songs were hit singles. On "Chicago 17," Champlin would get the vocals again on four songs, three shared with Cetera and one lead vocal on "Please Hold On," a song he co-wrote with Foster and Lionel Richie.
For the first release from the 17th Chicago album, "Stay The Night," a song strong on synthesizers and Pinnick's lead guitar with lead vocals by Cetera, would get as high as No. 16. It was not the kind of lead single you want from an album by a well-known group.
So once again, Foster made the decision that changed the direction of the band -- for the next single in the summer of 1984, a totally different song from the synth-heavy "Stay The Night" was chosen. The song was "Hard Habit To Break," a tune that brought back the famous Chicago brass sound, only this time in a ballad in the form of "If You Leave Me Now." It also featured Foster's careful string arrangement that played throughout.
But it also featured the co-lead vocals of Champlin, who was the second lead vocal after Cetera's first lead vocal. The song, co-written by Foster, John Lewis and Steve Kipner, famous for co-writing Olivia Newton-John's monster 1981 No. 1 hit "Physical" and writing Christina Aguilera's debut No. 1 hit in 1999, "Genie In A Bottle," debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 61 the week of August 4, 1984 and zoomed to No. 41 two weeks later.
One week later -- the week of August 25, 1984 -- "Hard Habit To Break" was the highest debuting song in the Top 40, coming in at No. 32, debuting in the countdown the same week that new hits by Laura Branigan ("The Lucky One"), The Jacksons ("Torture") and Fleetwood Mac's Lindsay Buckingham ("Go Insane") debuted.
Driven by their appearance on MTV in a music video featuring the band playing the song in a black backdrop and featuring women with "habits" in the video, the song zoomed up the Top 40 four notches at a time the first three weeks. Then the week of September 22, it jumped up six notches from No. 20 to No. 14 to eclipse the peak mark of "Stay The Night." It didn't stop, though, as two weeks later on October 6, the song leaped from No. 12 to No. 6 and had the Top 5 in its sights. Two weeks later on October 20, 1984, the smash got to No. 3, but that's where it would top out after two straight weeks in that position.
The tune, about the difficulties of living alone after the heartbreak of the end of a relationship, would go on to earn a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year and win a Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocals in 1985.
The song helped boost a run of 1980s hits for Chicago as "You're The Inspiration," featuring Cetera completely on lead vocal, got to No. 3 in early 1985 and "Along Comes A Woman," another synthesizer-driven hit with some horn background, would go to the Top 15. It would be the last lead vocal by Cetera, who made the decision in the summer of 1985 to leave the band after nearly 18 years for a solo career.
The band continued on with the revamped synthesizer-driven, power-ballad sound Foster force-fed the public as Champlin became one of the two lead vocalists for the band along with new member Jason Scheff, a 23-year-old Californian newbie who was brought in to replace Cetera as bass guitarist. Champlin did most of the lead vocals on hits like "Will You Still Love Me?" (shared with Scheff), "I Don't Want To Live Without Your Love" and the band's third No. 1 hit in 1988, the Diane Warren-penned hit "Look Away."
In 2009, Champlin, a driving force in the band for 28 years, decided to leave the band to resume a solo career he had been tinkering with for a few years. Chicago has continued along with four original members -- Lee Loughnane, Lamm, James Pankow and Walter Parazaider -- and Scheff leading the way. Over the last few years, Chicago has toured side by side with good friends Earth, Wind & Fire and were doing so again in the summer of 2015.
Though Champlin left the band in 2009 for a solo career, he has not released a solo CD since 2008's "No Place Left To Fall." In 2013, his son, Will, finished third on the television singing competition The Voice. Champlin and singer-songwriter-wife Tamara have been married for 33 years.
Champlin put a lot of work into his time with Chicago, not an easy thing for an outsider from the band to do, yet he did it and helped to establish the band's sound of the 1980s, giving it a second career. And it all started with Foster's decision to give Champlin more lead vocal, including the hit "Hard Habit To Break," which broke a habit of Peter Cetera solo lead vocals, the last not solely featuring Cetera being 1972's "Saturday In The Park" as Cetera and Lamm shared vocals.
Old habits are hard to break. In this case, it lent a new lead voice to an American institution.
No comments:
Post a Comment