"In Terms of Two"

The Amazing Similarities Between Chicago and Toto

By Darrin Matteson

LOS ANGELES circa 1981/82, Chicago is in the biggest slump of their careers.
Seemingly the death of Terry Kath finally caught up with them. Terry's
gone! Guercio's gone! Columbia is gone along with the release rights for
all material on the first 14. In walks Bill Champlin and David Foster– two
men, men on a mission to revitalize Chicago and get them back on the right
track.

Meanwhile– in the same city around the same time, a different management
office. Steve Lukather, David Paich, Jeff Porcaro, Bobby Kimball, Steve
Porcaro, and David Hungate discuss plans for their next album. Their debut
album wowed the industry with it's well-polished precision sound but the two
follow-up releases "Hydra" and "Turn Back" received only lukewarm success
and little critical acclaim. Critics were telling them "Turn Back" should
be called "Go Back" as in go back to being just session musicians.

Then the courtship of these two groups began like a rhapsody. Bill Champlin
had worked with the Toto boys in the past in the Fool's Gold and Airplay
sessions and on Bill's own solo releases "Single" and "Runaway." Now it was
their turn to help revitalize Chicago- to pump the life-blood back into them.

In another part of southern California, a struggling young session vocalist
and composer got an assignment to just write a song and see what happened.
So Joseph Williams and Jay Gruska sat down and wrote what ended up being the
opening track to Chicago 16, "What You're Missing." Less than five years
later Joseph found himself behind the microphone with a couple of guys who
were sitting in on the Chicago 16 sessions... Joseph became the third lead
vocalist of Toto.

By some karmic twist of fate– Chicago 16 soared to the top of the charts.
Quite impressed with his t'bone styling, Toto asks James Pankow to sit in on
the Toto IV sessions. They ask him to play on a little song that was
written for Steve Porcaro's girlfriend, "Rosanna" Arquette. And so Jimmy
Pankow plays trombone on one of Toto's top-selling singles. And much like
Chicago– Toto breaks out of their rut when Toto IV sweeps the 1982 Grammy
Awards.

Time to record Chicago 17, Steve Lukather is invited back to offer his
assistance along with a few other top-name session musicians including an
aspiring young singer/songwriter named Richard Marx.

Then the bottom nearly falls out again... for both groups. Shortly after
Bobby Kimball is fired by Toto for his drug usage, Peter Cetera leaves
Chicago to pursue a solo career. After turning down Toto's invitation to be
their lead singer, Mr. Mister's Richard Page also turns down Chicago's
invitation to be their lead singer.

Toto hires Fergie Frederiksen, Chicago hires Jason Scheff. Chicago still
has a minor problem– Chris Pinnick was fired after the Chicago 17 tour.
Chicago needs a session guitarist to fill in the gap left by Pinnick until a
new full-time guitarist can be hired. Buzz Feiten, Michael Landau, and
Steve Lukather come in to fill Pinnick's shoes (man, he must have had big
feet).

Again Toto is having problems with their lead singer. Fergie is a great
live performer, he keeps in shape and has the energy of David Lee Roth; he
even goes so far as to do back-flips on stage. Unfortunately, he has trouble
in the studio and songs that would normally only take a week or two to lay
down the vocal tracks for take Fergie over a month to get down on tape.

Jeff Porcaro calls Jason Scheff and asks him if he knows of any good tenors
looking for a job. Earlier that day, Jason had been listening to some demos
with Joseph Williams on vocals, the very same Joseph Williams who co-wrote
"What You're Missing" for Chicago 16. Jason gave Jeff Joseph's number and
shortly thereafter Joseph was in Toto.

The courtship between the members of these two groups has continued even to
today. In 1987, James Pankow played trombone on a few of the tracks for
Toto's "The Seventh One" album. While not all of the songs he played on
made it onto the album, a few of the ones that didn't make it will appear on
the soon to be released Toto XX CD (tentative U.S. Release Date 10/1/98).
Steve Porcaro who left Toto after the "Fahrenheit" tour ended up working
some of the synthesizers on Chicago "Twenty-1." Joseph Williams co-wrote
and sang background vocals on the Peter Cetera song "Man In Me" (which was
later re-recorded by Williams for his "3" album) and also sang background on
Bill Champlin's "Burn Down the Night" CD. Bill Champlin and Joseph Williams
both made contributions to Jay Graydon's "Airplay for the Planet" CD. Tris
Imboden joined them to play drums on the Eurasian tour to promote the CD.
Jason Scheff and Bill Champlin sang background vocals on multiple tracks of
Joseph's "I Am Alive" CD. Bill Champlin, Jason Scheff, and Tris Imboden
teamed up with Joseph Williams, Steve Lukather, Steve Porcaro, Mike Porcaro,
Simon Phillips, David Paich and many of Los Angeles' other top session
musicians for the David Garfield and Friends "Tribute to Jeff" CD. Bobby
Kimball and Joseph Williams teamed up with Bill Champlin and Jason Scheff
for the West Coast All-Stars "California Dreamin'" CD. Bobby Kimball
co-wrote and sang background on some songs from Jason Scheff's solo CD
"Chauncy." And Jason reprised his role in the West Coast All Stars with
Bobby, Joseph, and Tommy Funderburk, who stepped in for Bill Champlin.

In short, when the members of these two groups get together, magical things
happen!