Love songs from Chicago

Chicago has a new compilation album out and there is something very strange about it. If You Leave Me Now, one of the famous rock jazz group’s biggest selling songs is performed by Philip Bailey. So what is wrong with that? There is really nothing wrong with the rendition. In fact, it is quite a soulful take on the pop standard. I only say strange because Bailey is not Chicago but of Earth Wind & Fire.

Bailey with the expressive falsetto is the voice heard on most of EW&F famous recordings like September, After the Love is Gone, Reason’s, Got to Get You Into My Life, Fantasy, Boogie Wonderland, Serpentine Fire and others. The credits say his version of If You Leave Me Now was recorded live at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles a year ago.

So we can probably say that somewhere in the recent past, Chicago and Earth Wind & Fire, two of the most popular music groups America has produced, got together for a concert and this If You Leave Me Now is one of the interesting results. Another one is the version of EW&F’s After the Love is Gone, which is also oddly included in this Chicago album. However, this one is performed by Earth Wind & Fire together with Chicago soloist Bill Champlin. It turns out that Champlin composed the song with David Foster and then they gave it to EW&F.

The presence of these two cuts lifts this Love Songs collection out of the usual hit compilations Chicago has already done a lot of. And there are more. Also included are two songs by Peter Cetera, which he recorded after leaving the group and going solo. These are The Glory of Love, the theme from the movie The Karate Kid and The Next Time I Fall, a duet with the wonderful gospel star Amy Grant. These songs do sound like they were recorded by Chicago mainly because Cetera was singing most of the solo parts as in Hard to Say I’m Sorry until his departure in 1981.

The Cetera solos and the Earth Wind & Fire versions are not found in any of several greatest hits albums released by Chicago. The other cuts in Love Songs are pretty much standard materials you probably already have in the earlier albums. Still, it feels nice to have the romantic side of Chicago all in a single CD and to be able to listen to these treasured songs one after the other.

You’re the Inspiration, Saturday in the Park, Hard to Say I’m Sorry, Get Away, Here in My Heart, Call on Me, Colour My World, Hard Habit to Break, Look Away, Beginnings, Will You Still Love Me?, No Tell Lover, I Don’t Wanna Live without Your Love, What Kind of a Man Would I Be? and Just You ‘n’ Me.

The language of music

More music quotes: That little item from actor Leonard Nimoy’s book of poetry I printed some days ago prompted a reader to send these quotes also about music in the e-mail.

"The other arts persuade us, but music takes us by surprise" by the great classical music critic Eduard Hanslick.

"Music is the art of thinking with sounds," compiled from an unknown source by Jules Combarieu.

How true! How true indeed!

Hits in the US

And now here are the songs that are taking the US of A by surprise as of this moment. The top ten singles from Billboard Magazine’s Hot 100 list are: Hollaback Girl from Gwen Stefani’s getting to be hit-studded first solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby; Hate It or Love It by The Game featuring 50 Cent; Candy Shop by 50 Cent featuring Olivia; Lonely by Akon; Oh by Ciara featuring Ludacris; Since U Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson; Lonely No More by matchbox 20’s Rob Thomas; Speed of Sound by Coldplay; Obsession (No es Amor) by Frankie J featuring Baby Bash; and 1 Thin by Amerie.

The top ten albums are the following: Something to Be by Rob Thomas; The Emancipation of Mimi by Mariah Carey; Who is Mike Jones by Mike Jones; Il Divo by Il Divo;The Massacre by 50 Cent; Love. Angel. Music. Baby by Gwen Stefani; Hot Fuss by The Killers; American Idiot by Green Day; Now 18 by Various Artists; and Three 6 Mafia Presented Choices II: The Setup, the original soundtrack by Various Artists.