Bill Champlin’s “Daddy’s Favorite Fool” closes out 1982’s Chicago 16 as an added bonus track on the re-mastered Rhino reissue. Like almost all bonus tracks, it’s no more than a mixed bag of tricks. There are reasons that songs don’t make the final cut and are left in the vault instead of winning a spot on the album.
It’s not that there is anything particularly wrong with “Daddy’s Favorite Fool.” It just sounds unfinished, which it probably is. There were very few completed bonus tracks added to the original albums during Chicago’s re-issue program and that was a real shame.
Champlin’s voice gives “Daddy’s Favorite Fool” an R&B feel, so it’s got a grittier personality than most Chicago songs of this era – and that’s a good thing. But if any track on Champlin and David Foster’s debut with the band needed horns, it was this one. The unfinished production accompanied by a new voice may make it unrecognizable to to their older fans.
One attractive thing about “Daddy’s Favorite Fool” is that it’s not a silly love song, a group specialty during this era. It’s about a lady who has made love but never really found love.
“She’s so sensual to her lovers
When they’re playing by her rules
Intellectual to the others
She’s as stubborn as a mule
Always sensible with her mother
She’s her Daddy’s favorite fool
She’s so cool”
Whether you like “Daddy’s Favorite Fool” or not mostly depends on whether you like Bill Champlin’s voice. For me, he is an on-again, off-again thing. On this Chicago song, he is “on” – but it still needs horns.
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