Chicago Into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame: What Happens Next?

Yes, I play guitar and piano myself. I guess I was trying to be diplomatic to their own "abilities"....lol.

 

Well I guess someone should have arranged all this with Peter back oh, about 1990 or 1995...so I see where Peter's frustrated, he doesn't want to sing period (getting in bed with the ex-wife) shame he has so much working on his system since 1985. At most he has bigger responsibilities today, take care of kids (not gonna raise issues there). Best to Danny, and whoever shows up (Donnie Dacus?) for the party. Best to everyone!

 

Peter can sing a song or give a thank you speech or stay home I don't care. He doesn't seem too busy to milk this opportunity to boost his name recognition for all it is worth.

 

He has daughter 19 I read nowhere he has anymore?
he's not married to anybody right now so unless he had another daughter
10 yrs ago.. he just being grumpy .. and stubborn..
This would his time in spotlight in front of a huge crowd..

 

Ralph is and was just there. I really don't like EWF without Maurice White, he had a cool stage presentation, voice, I never wanted to hear Philip Bailey singing Maurice White's parts or even worse Sheldon Reynolds.

Yep. Chicago at least had a few good singers to make up for Cetera's absence and some fans probably have gotten to the point where they didn't miss him.

 

What's always been sort of interesting to me is that, particularly in the 70s and early 80s, Cetera wasn't *always* a great live vocalist himself -- tending to sometimes sing flat (coupled with his clenched-jaw style and way of attacking notes really hard). I think he actually improved as a live singer and was more consistent as the years wore on and after he left the band....even if I wasn't really into his MORish solo music.

I'm not really a fan of Jason's voice and timbre, so part of me wanting to hear Peter with the band now was to just see what kind of synergy they might have going on in that regard. Even taking into account age, possible lowered keys and all that jazz. If only for one night.

Guess we'll never know now.

 

Sheldon wasn't awful but I didn't want to hear it. Maurice had a decent voice and it worked because he wrote for it. He wasn't incredible but he knew how to make it work in the EWF context. Philips has a great voice and I'm sure he's more comfortable these days doing Maurice's stuff but it doesn't work nearly as well. He likely knows this.

At first, they had Terry and Robert. Then, they had Bill and Robert. Now, they have Robert. Jason isn't great and Lou's voice had taken a nosedive. He, at one time, had a great voice.

Ed

 

I was just thinking about Jason Scheff, he never really replaced what Cetera good do on his best day but it was serviceble at times.

In a way Peter Cetera couldn't quite recapture the best of what Chicago offered him, strange how it all worked out, I still hope they perform together.

 

Yep Maurice's voice wasn't great buy it had a certain wryness that helped a lot of the songs, plus it really cut through the productions. I'm surprised that Philip's voice wasn't effected singing Maurice's range.

Lou Pardini deal isn't working out like I thought it would. And really I'm still surprised that Robert Lamm doesn't/didn't sing more. There was a clip of him singing "Make Me Smile" from a few years ago that was really good.

 

Yeah, for me, I can maybe take Jason singing Just You 'N' Me in a live setting -- the track he auditioned for the band with and always seemed a bit more at ease with than the rest. Beyond that...his timbre and phrasing never really appealed to me that much on stage. In the studio, I think serviceable is indeed a good term.

 

I'm cracking up at the compliments about Jason's voice. Seriously? Listen to the entire Chicago 18 record, there are so many effects applied to his voice to mask the weakness of it, it's not a surprise that all of the hit singles from the next record were sung by Bill(the Jason sung "We Can Last Forever" only made it to #54).

 

Ludicrous, isn't it? LOL!!!

There's actually a demo circulating of him doing part of "Look Away". It's worse than you can imagine.

Ed

 

I'd love to hear it, just for curiosity sake. His vocals were okay on "What Kind Of Man Would I Be?".

 

There are effects all over "WCOMWIB" too - especially on the choruses. The "Look Away" demo is not on YouTube like I thought it was so I can't share the horror with you.

Ed

 

While were on the subject of voices, what happened with Champlin's voice in the late 80s? He had a real growl at the beginning of his tenure with the band(not to mention he was really fat), then by "19" his voice is very high(and he's clean shaven, long haired, and skinny). Did he get vocal lessons, or was exploring the upper range of his voice?

 

Ladies and Gentelmen, I give you the immensely talented Jason Scheff

 

Compliments? Seems like everyone in this thread agrees with you...lol!

 

His voice sounds fine to me, his hairstyle on the otherhand..........

 

After reading Lamm's quotes, I'm reminded of something David Foster wrote in his autobiography (yes, I was once bored enough to thumb through a David Foster book at a store--haha), something to the effect that the members of Chicago couldn't agree on anything, and that they'd have meetings just to schedule more meetings. Maybe that's a hard habit to break.

 

yeah, he sings better here than Champlin, who's all mannerisms.

 

He's okay here. I don't like his phrasing one bit but he's not pitch-slaying like he usually does. Champlin's phrasing is no better, really. He's all ad-lib and soulless belter. He used to be really good but, as was mentioned, he started ad-libbing way too much. He just won't stick to the melody. My sense is that he was bored with Chicago's rarely-changing set list by this point and this is how it manifested itself.

Ed

 

I think even the Scheff haters might agree this ain't half bad:

 

I would do that. Likely some very good stories in it. He's worked with everyone. This interests me.

Ed

 

He's not quite as good here. He's still good but his pitch isn't as "on" as the other one during the verses. He nailed all the high ad-libs at the end though. Sadly, moments like this are isolated. He wasn't this good often.

Ed

 

Straight from the horse's mouth about Chicago: