Imagine owning a Ferrari for almost three decades and never taking it out on the open road to see what it can do? Imagine never driving it over the speed limit!
Such is the tale of Bill Champlin. Chicago had a multiple Grammy-winning songwriter (Earth Wind and Fire’s “After the Love Has Gone” and George Benson’s “Turn Your Love Around”) in their ranks for nearly 30 years, and they barely utilized his immense talents. He was Chicago’s Ferrari. While they got close a few times, they never really let him loose to show what he was really capable of.
“Who Do You Love” from 1991’s Twenty 1 is an uptempo rocker that scratches the surface of what Champlin could do. The song bursts out of the gate with a fiery horn chart underscored with Champlin’s Hammond. The horns are easily far more present on this track than any of the songs on its predecessor, 1988’s Chicago 19. There’s just the slight bit of gravel in Champlin’s vocals that gives it a soulful edge, reminiscent of the soul Terry Kath’s vocals brought to the original incarnation of Chicago.
Once again the original Ron Nevison mix gives “Who Do You Love” room to breathe. The officially released Humberto Gatica version fills in all of that space with weird vocal effects that sound wholly out of place on a Chicago album. Call it subtraction by addition.
Where Gatica did a great job with David Foster’s production on Chicago 16 through 18, he was not the right person to mix Twenty 1. Nevison knew what he was doing. He knew what band he was producing and he even managed to right some wrongs from Chicago 19, bringing the horns much more into the mix than they had been on any songs from the previous album.
The Nevison mix of “Who Do You Love” sounds like what one would expect a Chicago song to sound like. The Gatica version sounds like the same song as viewed in a funhouse mirror.
Someone once mentioned the song does bear some similarity to former lead vocalist Peter Cetera’s “One Good Woman“:
You bring me feeling
You bring me fire
You give me a love that’s taking me higherWho do you love
What makes it happen
What do you need for satisfaction
Completely different lyrics of course but the cadence of the vocal delivery is uncannily similar. Unfortunately, or fortunately, since that has been mentioned I can’t listen to either song without hearing the other in my head.
Sadly, this song marks yet another example of Chicago getting in their own way. Ron Nevison produced what one could and would consider a solid Chicago album. Dissatisfied with a mix that actually gave the music room to breathe and be appreciated, Humberto Gatica was brought in to suffocate it by filling all of that space with unnecessary noise. The result is a rather unwelcome compressed and claustrophobic feel.
Sometimes less is more and more is less.
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