The Sons of Champlin: Before Chicago (June 17, 1973)

The Sons of Champlin reached KSAN during a crowded chapter of their Bay Area career. They were promoting Welcome to the Dance, a Columbia double LP, with four albums already behind them.

On June 17, 1973, the Marin County group brought its blue-eyed soul and jazz-rock blend to Record Plant Sausalito. Tom Donahue introduced the broadcast on KSAN 95 FM.

Bill Champlin led a band built around close vocal arrangements and changing instrumental roles. Terry Haggerty played guitar and sang, while Geoffrey Palmer handled keyboards and vocals. David Schallock played bass and sang. James Preston supplied drums and percussion.

That lineup matters because this is Champlin before his long later association with Chicago. He joined the group in 1981 and remained through 2009. He later co-wrote and sang on Chicago's "Will You Still Love Me?," which reached No. 3 in 1986.

None of that later history changes what the 1973 broadcast represents. The Sons of Champlin had spent years developing a local identity outside simpler rock categories. Their music made room for soul harmonies, guitar lines, keyboards, and songs that could shift between tightly arranged passages.

The available setlist offers only part of the evening. The surviving fragment names four pieces without a confirmed order: the Donahue introduction, a cover of the Beatles' "Day Tripper," Haggerty's original "No Mo," and Champlin's original "For Joy." Additional songs remain unidentified.

That fragment is useful without pretending to be complete. It places a familiar cover beside original material from two central writers. It also suggests the range of a working set built around the band's own repertoire.

Welcome to the Dance received a major-label push but did not chart nationally. The broadcast therefore catches the group promoting an ambitious new record without the larger commercial result Columbia may have expected. For a band with an established Bay Area following, that gap forms part of the story.

The performance survives in collector circulation rather than through an official release. Archive notes describe an approximately 58-minute FM broadcast shared among collectors, including BigO/ROIO and Traders' Den listings. A BigO collector citation supports the June 17 date.

No playable audio has been located on the archive's approved public domains. That distinction belongs to the record. This is not a streamable KSAN artifact waiting behind a link. It remains a documented broadcast known through collector circulation and partial setlist evidence.

The absence of a public source also keeps the article close to what can be established. The date is verified. The personnel and several songs are documented. The rest of the performance remains outside the available record.

Still, the broadcast holds a clear place in the band's timeline. It catches The Sons of Champlin at Record Plant Sausalito, carrying a new Columbia release and the sound they had built across years in Marin County. Donahue's introduction opens the surviving account. After that, the known setlist gives only a partial view of the room.