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Robin Thicke and Chicago


Craig MacDonald

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Bill Champlin then went on to play with Chicago, and is still with them I believe.
He left Chicago in 2008. His son Will was on the last season of The Voice, finishing 3rd.

 

I see. We had a big jam after our show, and Bill sat down behind the drum kit and played some nice drums.

 

Come to think of it, Jan Hammer sat down behind Billy's kit and smoked it at the MO sound check.

Moe

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Get It On by Chase has one of my all time favourite organ solos..!! Sorry, couldn't find a good quality recording, but give this a listen.. Seriously.. this organ solo is a thing of beauty.. short solo but it's quick, concise, and great jazzy feel.. OMG it's like perfection!!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFSSMziOrpE

 

It's a real shame we didn't get more of this... seriously if you haven't heard this tune, and you like Hammond, you have to give it a listen.

 

organ solo almost got drowned out !! grrrrr

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

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[70's Songwriter]

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I bought an album by the Flock called "Dinosaur Swamps" in the mid 70's when I was high just because of the great album cover.

 

Ooooooo... Pterodactyls on the cover. Who can identify the other '70's album cover that features the same birds/reptiles?

 

That would be.........Quatermass.

 

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKDzn4OQTTo

 

you win ! something, anyway :) always liked this band and album.

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

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[70's Songwriter]

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With all our walking down memory lane I hope we haven't chased all the kids out. I'm trying to get my hip huggers around my gut but no dice.

 

its tough all over. My cats have destroyed my fringe leather jacket

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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I bought an album by the Flock called "Dinosaur Swamps" in the mid 70's when I was high just because of the great album cover.

 

Ooooooo... Pterodactyls on the cover. Who can identify the other '70's album cover that features the same birds/reptiles?

 

That would be.........Quatermass.

 

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKDzn4OQTTo

Just like with the Flock's Dinosaur Swamps, in the 70's I would have bought that Quatermass album just for the cover had I seen it. For that matter, if I was high enough, I would have even bought a Leo Sayer or Bobby Goldsborough album if the cover art was cool enough.

 

 

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I bought an album by the Flock called "Dinosaur Swamps" in the mid 70's when I was high just because of the great album cover.

 

Ooooooo... Pterodactyls on the cover. Who can identify the other '70's album cover that features the same birds/reptiles?

 

That would be.........Quatermass.

 

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKDzn4OQTTo

 

you win ! something, anyway :) always liked this band and album.

 

One of my favorite prog trios. Peter Robinson is a monster. He Influenced John Novello as well.

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Chase had three albums, each with different personnel. The third album was the biggest shift, towards mostly instrumental jazz fusion with a couple of blues/r&b/rock influenced vocal songs with outrageously misogynist lyrics courtesy of none other than Jim Peterik, who formed Survivor with two other members of Chase NOT on the plane:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_(band)

 

I was supposed to be at the concert that they were heading to, and my high school band director and the others of us in the small mini-bus heading to the concert were horrified when we heard of the tragedy on the car radio.

 

Bill Chase had previously been one of Maynard Ferguson's main co-arrangers and trumpet section leaders in his big band. That's where he learned how to play high, but he was one of the few who could carry a useful vibrato with variable expression in that register.

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Can hardly wait to see the videos of this portion of the Grammy Awards. My brother found them earlier today (he too does not own a TV and/or was predisposed by a gig at the time of the original live broadcast), and was wowed by Robin Thicke. He wasn't a big Chicago fan like I was, but was very supportive of me when I had a Chicago tribute band for awhile back in the mid to late 80's, and said this was the highlight of the show as well as Robin Thicke being one of the few modern singers who can sing on pitch.

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Terry was the most soulful and original singer in the band; they had a hard time going on without him, and it was Cetera that whipped them back into shape and drafted David Foster and David Paich on board to help reshape the band and give them new purpose and focus and currency in the 80's.

 

I really like Robert Lamm's singing -- especially when he veers towards jazz -- but think I heard he has some vocal problems (I mean health issues) so that may be why RT sang his songs. I've never seen Chicago live in person but watched the amazing DVD of their joint tour with EW&F a few years back and Robert Lamm's singing had never been more soulful. They were all in top form then, loving what they did and seeming to be OK with the live act being an entirely different thing than their studio gig.

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The fourth album would not have been when the "lounge singer" style appeared, as that was Live at Carnegie Hall (a four-disc set back in the days of vinyl; few could afford it, you would think, yet it propelled them into stardom quicker than the previous studio releases).

 

If you mean Cetera's ballads though, that was a fluke and one that the band and especially Cetera resented. The label decided they needed to become a mostly-ballads band once a couple of Cetera's softer numbers hit Top 40. Labels are hard to fight. It may be no coincidence that Kath's last album was one where they desperately tried to get back the rawness of their earlier material. My point being that depression and disillusion was a major contributor to his passive/aggressive semi-suicide with the whole Russian Roulette thing in the full band's presence. It's a big reason why the death affected them so strongly (which it would have anyway). Few bands have bounced back from a tragedy at that level, where there is "survivor's guilt".

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The fourth album would not have been when the "lounge singer" style appeared, as that was Live at Carnegie Hall (a four-disc set back in the days of vinyl; few could afford it, you would think, yet it propelled them into stardom quicker than the previous studio releases).

 

If you mean Cetera's ballads though, that was a fluke and one that the band and especially Cetera resented. The label decided they needed to become a mostly-ballads band once a couple of Cetera's softer numbers hit Top 40. Labels are hard to fight. It may be no coincidence that Kath's last album was one where they desperately tried to get back the rawness of their earlier material. My point being that depression and disillusion was a major contributor to his passive/aggressive semi-suicide with the whole Russian Roulette thing in the full band's presence. It's a big reason why the death affected them so strongly (which it would have anyway). Few bands have bounced back from a tragedy at that level, where there is "survivor's guilt".

 

The real story of Terry death , told by Lamm on an interview you can find on youtube. Has terry at his jam house where he would go to play guitar. The only other person on the premises was a friend/roadie who was in the other room. Terry was not depressed, he was cleaning his gun and forgot a round was chambered. The upward angle of the wound verifies this.

FunMachine.

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Jan Hammer blew up my leslie...

Jan hammer was one of my heros in the 70's. The SOB could not only wail on a synth and blow Leslie's up (I hope he made good with you), he was also an excellent drummer. Although when he played with Mahavishnu, he had to take a back seat on drums to my all-time favorite stick man, Mr. Cobham.

 

Not meaning to start a flame war, but for fusion I always liked Mahavishnu more than Return to Forever or Weather Report because of the intensity and fire they played with, which was in no small part due to Cobham's drumming.

 

BTW... I gave up seriously pursuing drums after seeing Cobham's blinding speed live in about 1980 and realizing I could never physically do what he did. I then flogged my ego and decided to pursue becoming a "mediocre" keyboardist, which I'm still striving for.

Gigs: Nord 5D 73, Kurz PC4-7 & SP4-7, Hammond SK1, Yamaha MX88 & P121, Numa Compact 2x, Casio CGP700, QSC K12, Yamaha DBR10, JBL515xt(2). Alto TS310(2)

 

 

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Bill Chase had previously been one of Maynard Ferguson's main co-arrangers and trumpet section leaders in his big band...

 

Ok, did not know that part! I took a couple of workshops with Maynard and various personnel from his band back around ... oh never mind the year. A while ago! Really nice/cool folks!

Les Mizzell

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I really like Robert Lamm's singing -- especially when he veers towards jazz -- but think I heard he has some vocal problems (I mean health issues) so that may be why RT sang his songs.

I'm not sure why you would think this - they planned a pairing of Robin Thicke (a singer) and Chicago - of course they were going to let him sing some of the leads. Robert sounded fine on his parts (to my ears).

 

Jerry

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My 20 year old called last night from college and he was given a tickets to see Chicago and he went to the show with his aunt.

 

He is a sax player. He was not real familiar with Chicago but it sounds like he is a big fan today.

 

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So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt

 

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Sorry Jerry, it's best to take w/ a grain of salt anything said on GS by someone who supposedly knows. I had read that Lamm wasn't well (flu or something) and had to pass on the singing, but I didn't mean that RT was called in because of that or that they didn't originally plan to sing together. The whole thing might have been a spontaneous decision just to let RT fly w/ it.

 

Good to hear Lamm clarify what happened with the gun, and it's good to know Kath wasn't depressed at the time. I would take what Lamm says on these two matters vs. what the music press said at the time. Musical "journalists" are notorious for making stuff up -- especially if they don't like the people they're writing about (my personal encounters with Todd Rundgren confirm this, as he is the opposite of how the music press portrays him and if I ever have the money I'll hire him to produce my work).

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I thought Robert Lamm sounded fine on the Grammys, but he looked great. I looked up his age, and he's 69. I want his plastic surgeon and hairdresser when I'm his age. Hell, I could use the help now.

 

Come out with your hands up! I have a synthesizer, and I'm not afraid to use it.
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I thought Robert Lamm sounded fine on the Grammys, but he looked great. I looked up his age, and he's 69. I want his plastic surgeon and hairdresser when I'm his age. Hell, I could use the help now.

 

+1 I could not believe how good he looked. and sounded...

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. . . Robin Thicke was not a good match for Chicago. I realize that Terry Kath is gone and Peter Cetera moved on years ago, but trying to change a great sound and a great band decades after the fact is like trying to re-paint the Mono Lisa. Yuck. :sick:

 

What if they'd taken a shot at the Stereo Lisa?

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Whew, that took quite an effort to find a valid link for the medley (I didn't realize they only played for a few minutes, which puts a different context on Robert Lamm supposedly not singing, which he actually did quite a bit of in the clip I found):

 

http://www.justjared.com/2014/01/26/robin-thicke-chicago-perform-medley-at-grammys-2014-video/

 

I have mixed feelings about Thicke; sometimes he's on and other times he isn't. I interpret it as entertainment, due to the medley arrangement, and acceptable in that context. When he moves on to his own song, he's definitely 100% on, and the Chicago horn backing is welcome.

 

Yeah, Lamm looks younger than ever, and he reminds me a bit of Mel Torme in that video. Everyone's having a great time and that's always good to see, and a bit rare these days. Most of all, I think it's great the horns were so visible because doubtless many young people will now be inspired to learn how to play one of them.

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BTW one of the reasons I love seeing clips of Chicago live is that Lamm is very front and center and participatory, as are the horns. With a couple of exceptions, the studio albums are the opposite these past couple of decades. That's because the labels don't think Lamm's songs are bankable. Many people thought he became less prolific but that isn't the case; his songs get rejected. His solo albums are phenomenal and each one is quite different from the other. Anyway, it's good to see them giving the old songs the energy of someone discovering them for the first time.

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I'd imagine one of the reasons Bobby Lamm is given prominence of place ("very front and center") in Chicago's performances is that besides the horn section, he is, I think, the only other original member and link to the band's 70's heyday, and the only one at all doing lead vocals. So his presence is really vital to the legitimacy of the band and is rightfully emphasized. Younger fans might not be as aware, but besides Lamm and the horn players, the rest of the group is pretty much a tribute band. Man, I especially love albums II, V and X.

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Younger fans might not be as aware, but besides Lamm and the horn players, the rest of the group is pretty much a tribute band.
Except look at how long the "new guys" have been with the band - the drummer since 1990, guitar player since 1995, bass since 1985! That's longer than Kath.

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Not only that, but in this case, at their shows, the majority of the hits people came to hear are from back in their original incarnation, that was unquestionably the one that had the most impact. (And the members who came on board on 1990 or later, they even missed the band's second round or "silver age" of hits in the 80's.) I remember seeing them back in '95 or so and thinking there was a slight falseness to the situation because Jason Scheff, that's his name, right?, mimicked Peter Cetera's vocals down to a tee, such that again many or most in the audience probably had no idea that it wasn't the original singer they were hearing on those songs. So I still say it's a bit tribute-band-ish today, but I really don't mean that as a slight against the band, any of the members or fans, it's just the way reality shakes out.

 

Rich Forman

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Actually, the story I heard was that Jason got the job because his natural voice was a close match, not that he was consciously copping the Cetera thing. I may be wrong, but I think Cetera was the one who recommended him, wanting to leave on good terms.

 

Don't forget, his dad played with Elvis. :-) Some of the other "new guys" have interesting pedigrees as well, so they weren't just pick-up guys who had the chops and wanted to do it but had lifelong ambition to be in this specific band.

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