Hey everybody, it's me again-Bill Champlin. I wanted to remind you guys, especially NorCal friends, that Tamara Champlin & I are gonna' do an "Unplugged" night on January 31 at Throckmorton 142, featuring some really musical friends: Terry Haggerty, Tim Cain, and Tal Morris. I'm putting together some tracks and we're putting a sequence together that should be a fun night for everyone. We'll do some straight ahead acoustic-kinda' music and play along with some tracks that I'm putting together now; I'll do a handful of my "Hits", as it were, and people can hear the songs more like how they sounded when they were written. We usually don't do a lotta' these on Sons' gigs. I did a solo thing at Throckmorton quite a few years ago and Tim Cain joined me. That led to Tim rejoining the Sons, ‘cause we had a ball on that gig. Seemed like a perfect thing for him to get back in the Sons. Terry and Tal both held down the "guitar chair" in different eras of that band and they are still two of my three favorite guitarists.
Tamara will do a good handful of her songs, which are great. Some were recorded by different artists; Paul Rogers was one of them and most recently her tune “Crawl” written with Jeff Paris was part of Danielle Nicole’s 2019 Grammy Nominated Release “Cry No More”. She's been singing with the Sons of Champlin for a good while and, between Tamara, Carmen, and me, our vocals are way cool. Tamara is a great lead singer and will tear you up.
Tim is a great sax player, my favorite tenor tone ever, and a great arranger; he pretty much arranged the 1st two Sons' albums. Tim is also a great songwriter and singer, so we'll feature some of his things.
Terry is the total guitarist and great songwriter who has given us some really great and memorable songs. He's an innovator on guitar and opened the door for guitarists worldwide to go waaaaay further than most of the players at the time. I've always loved his playing--rhythm and lead. We haven't played together for a little while and I think this one may give us all some surprises.
Tal came into the Sons right before "Secret" and "Hip Li'l' Dreams", and is one of those amazing musicians who has been a NorCal mainstay for a good while. He was a member of "Creedence Revisited" or whatever they called it. Great grooves and they were very lucky to have this level of musician with them. He's a great friend of Terry's and mine. I'm thinking some crazy stuff will happen with these two guys on guitar.
By the way, for those of you who live in the Sacramento/Auburn area, the night after the Mill Valley gig Tamara and I are doing a show at Sutter Creek, near Auburn, at the Sutter Creek Theater. I'll see if any of the guys sitting in at Mill Valley might wanna' make the drive; you never know. Two sets with a break in- between so you can have a glass of wine or a beer between sets. Same story with Throckmorton 142, beer and wine are available. Probably be awhile before you can go to the lobby, buy a flower and some papers; it'd be like a bar in Amsterdam. Not quite yet, but it'll be happening eventually.
Anyway, my friend Melanie, who proofreads my messages and posts, will add the ticket link for you to get tickets. This has all the making of two of those gigs that people talk about for a long time. Come on over to Mill Valley on Jan. 31 and/or Sutter Creek for cool events. Love you tons, bill