Marin Independent
Journal Paul Liberatore TWENTY YEARS after they broke up, the Sons of Champlin, Marin's first homegrown rock band, reunited Saturday and Sunday nights at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium for a pair of concerts that brought back memories of a golden era in Bay Area music. The Sons played their first gig at College of Marin in 1965 and disbanded 12 wild and wooly years later, leaving behind a legacy as the best San Francisco band that never made it on the national scene. Along the way, though, they attracted a devoted Northern California following, especially in Marin, where they provided the soundtrack for baby boomers who came of age in the 1970s. Many of them were in the sold-out house at Saturday night's show, singing along passionately as the Sons played anthems like "Freedom," which opened the concert, and "Get High." "Tonight is like reliving the era," said Ken Fox, a 40-year-old Larkspur mortgage banker. "The memories are coming back. This is jogging a lot of brain cells that have been dormant." The concerts were more than a reunion for the Sons. Their fans were staging mini-reunions all over the venerable rock hall. "They played at my senior prom at Redwood High School in 1975," said Jim Clark, 40, a Larkspur Fire Department captain who was at the show with a group of old high school friends. "They were the house band of our time. We identified with their music. Tonight, we're going to stand up and yell, "Freedom!" The roots of the Sons of Champlin go back to the early 1960s, when singer and multi-instrumentalist Bill Champlin and guitarist Terry Haggerty played together in a Marin high school band called the Opposite Six. Champlin and Haggerty went on to become the yin and yang of the Sons, who were unlike the '60s psychedelic groups identified with what became known as the San Francisco Sound. Bands like the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane came from folk and blues back-grounds while the Sons were steeped in soul and funk, pioneering jazz-rock fusion. They were consummate musicians even then, one of the first rock bands to employ a horn section. "They were doing stuff that nobody was doing. They were doing Chicago before Chicago," said John Goddard of Village Music in Mill Valley. "For a while, they were the best of the San Francisco bands. When they were on, nobody could touch them." The Sons released a slew of critically acclaimed albums, including major label efforts for Capitol, Columbia and Ariola America. But their hippie ethos conflicted with the crass commercialism and rock star hype of the music business, and they never broke out with a hit record. In 1977, burdened by tax and financial problems and disappointed by the Sons' stalled career, a burned-out Champlin left the group and relocated with his family to Southern California, finding financial security and industry respectability as a Grammy-winning songwriter and singer with Chicago. Haggerty, now living in San Rafael, continued to perform locally on a more modest scale. After surviving a life-threatening illness, he became active with the Living-Dying foundation, a group that works with the terminally ill. "I like to play a part in telling people that music is a social force for change," he said before Saturday's show. "The music business has lost sight of that because of all the money involved." On stage Saturday night Haggerty was positively radiant, reeling off one incendiary, inspired guitar solo after another. "There's only one person who plays like that," Champlin told the crowd, "and you're looking at him." Despite suffering from a head cold, Champlin, one of the finest blue-eyed soul singers ever, worked expertly through classic Sons material like "Follow Your Heart" and "Welcome to the Dance.' He threw a couple of his own songs into the mix: "First and Last' and "They Don't Make Them Like They Used To," and showed his stuff on "Heat of the Night," the theme song from the TV show. Champlin switched between organ and electric guitar throughout the long set. He picked up an acoustic guitar, accompanied by Haggerty on electric, on a couple of soft, tender Sons' songs that were a highlight of the show: "Time Will Bring You Love," from their final album, "Loving Is Why"; and "To the Sea," from their "Circle Filled with Love" album. The Fillmore concerts and a Friday night warm up show in Santa Cruz brought the other original band members back together again as well - keyboardist-vibist Geoff Palmer of San Rafael, who over the years has worked as a carpenter, computer technician and leader of his own jazz group; bassist Dave Schallock, who works for a computer service company in Ignacio; saxophonist Tim Cain of Woodacre, who's built a career entertaining kids and making children's records, and drummer James Preston, who owns a cigar store in Healdsburg. They were augmented by two additional horn players, Tom Saviano and Mick Gillette of Tower of Power. The Sons showed that they can be more than a nostalgia act. They are all about 50 now, and they can still play, perhaps better than ever. Champlin brings with him a load of new material for the band to perform in its signature style. But future Sons gigs will have to be worked around Champlin's busy schedule with Chicago and his solo career. Still, the forecast that the Sons will continue to shine looks promising. As Champlin told the audience at one point: "It's too damn good not to do it again." Write to Paul Liberatore
at Lifestyle, Marin Independent Journal, |