The Sons of Champlin

One of the last and more obscure bands to emerge from the late-'60s San Francisco psychedelic scene, the Sons of Champlin were relatively unusual among Bay Area bands for favoring heavily soul-influenced material and employing a prominent horn section. Their more introspective songs can recall the more subdued efforts of Quicksilver Messenger Service and Moby Grape, and their longer compositions boasted unusually complex song structures and tempo shifts. Revered by some collectors, their work hasn't aged as well as the best of their peers; the vocals weren't gritty enough to carry the R&B-based material and the ambitious longer tracks were prone to some half-baked songwriting and meandering jamming. Their first three albums (issued on Capitol between 1969 and 1971) are considered their best, though they recorded some other LPs in the '70s with shifting personnel. In late 1997, the Sons of Champlin reunited for a series of hometown reunion concerts, resulting in the release of their first-ever live LP a year later. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide