Sons of Champlin still rocking after 40 years The Sons of Champlin, one of the pioneering San Francisco bands of the 1960s that continues to record and tour after a career spanning more than 40 years, will appear at 9 p.m. Friday at the Black Oak Casino in Tuolumne. It will be a return engagement for the band, which first performed at the casino to a full house in March 2006. Admission is free to guests 21 and over. The band has been led from the beginning by guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Bill Champlin, who has had a double career since 1981 as a keyboard player and singer for the band Chicago. The Sons of Champlin got their start in 1965 in Marin County. They recorded their first album, “Fat City,” for the Trident label in 1966. It produced two 1967 singles, “Sing Me a Rainbow” and “Fat City,” but the full album was never released until 1999. Their next three albums were released on Capitol — “Loosen Up Naturally” in 1968, “The Sons” in 1969 and “Follow Your Heart” in 1971 — with “Welcome to the Dance” issued by CBS Records in 1973. The Sons then launched their own label, Ariola, which produced three albums — “A Circle Filled With Love,” “Loving is Why” and “The Sons of Champlin (Gold Mine)” — between 1975 and 1977. Acadia Records has just remastered and re-released all three Sons albums from the Ariola years onto one two-disc set. “Now every record the Sons have ever made is available at www.sonsofchamplin.com,” Champlin said by telephone. That includes “Sons of Champlin Live” from 1998 and “Hip Li’l Dreams,” their first studio album in 28 years, released by Dig Music in 2005. Friday’s show, complete with horn section, will focus largely on the Ariola albums, with other selections drawn from their entire catalog. “We’ll be playing stuff from the first album and stuff from the last album, a little bit of everything,” he said. Splitting his time between the two bands, Champlin is working almost constantly. “I never take a break,” he said. “Chicago was on the road for 36 weeks last year, and whenever I get three weeks off I book gigs with the Sons.” Other than having Champlin as a member, there are few similarities between the two bands, he said. “In the Sons, we’re mainly doing my material, and I also sing more,” Champlin said. “Plus I really like to relate to an audience, so I’ll talk to them, but with Chicago I never say anything — they’ve got enough guys for that.”
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