When Bill Champlin discusses songwriting, you listen. The 70-year-old American artist composed dozens of pop hits during the 1970s and 1980s, ranging from his stint with Chicago (Look Away and I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love) to his work with Earth Wind & Fire (After the Love Has Gone) and George Benson's Turn Your Love Around. Speaking to The National after a recent gig on top of Ras Al Khaimah's Jebel Jais, Champlin took us through some of his all-time favourite tunes.
A song that reminds me of my childhood: anything by Harry James or Nat King Cole
From the age of 5 to about 10, I remember my mum listening to a lot of the trumpet of James and anything by Cole. I grew up in California, and my mum was a musician and she would orchestrate for all these different artists, so it was these kinds of songs that stayed with me and gave me this love for jazz music. Now, it is my son who can really play. He studied music in Berkeley College and got his BA. I also have a BA when it comes to music – a bad attitude.
A song that made me want to perform: ’Tobacco Road’ by Lou Rawls (1964)
I was a teenager when I first heard this track. Oh man, Lou's voice was so sexy and so masculine, and his back phrasing was amazing. I eventually grew up and got to work with Lou, and I remembered his complaining: 'Oh man, I can't get a hit these days.' I told him to relax and perhaps try to sing like David Bowie – he just laughed and told me to shut up.
A song that changed my career: ’After the Love Has Gone’ by Earth Wind & Fire (1979)
I originally co-wrote that song for my own album. It got me my first Grammy and changed my world a little bit. What was weird about it was the minute all this was happening, the taxman was at the door. Now, with my old band, I wasn't really taking care of business – as soon as the tax people saw me with some money finally, they came along and took it away. That was like 35,000 dollars that came and went like that. It's a cautionary tale – handle your business.
A song I wish I had written: ’Don’t You Worry ’Bout A Thing’ by Stevie Wonder
Really, anything Stevie does is just gold to me. What I love about what he does is that it really all just sounds so joyous, and that's an amazing effect to have as a songwriter. That's why I never even thought about copying Stevie. He remains such a good singer and player, and that's because he is one big learning machine. If you listen to his playing in the early albums like Talking Book and Innervisions and hear it now you just say: 'Wow.' He is a ridiculously talented player.
A song that makes me cry: ‘The Living Years’ by Mike + The Mechanics
There is a story behind this. It was around 1998 – I got a call one day from my step-brother saying my father was in hospital and there was not much time. My father lived in Oakland and I lived in Los Angeles. I couldn't get a flight that night and I had one the next morning. On the way to the airport, I got the call to say he was gone. And there was a period after that where I just became this surly person, biting people's heads off. Then, not long later, I was in the car and this song came on and it yanked my heart out – I just stayed in the car and cried my eyes out.
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Read more:
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Our House, Louise Candlish,
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SPECS
Mini John Cooper Works Clubman and Mini John Cooper Works Countryman
Engine: two-litre 4-cylinder turbo
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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If you go...
Etihad Airways flies from Abu Dhabi to Kuala Lumpur, from about Dh3,600. Air Asia currently flies from Kuala Lumpur to Terengganu, with Berjaya Hotels & Resorts planning to launch direct chartered flights to Redang Island in the near future. Rooms at The Taaras Beach and Spa Resort start from 680RM (Dh597).
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Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
26 UAE teams
15 Lebanese teams
2 Kuwaiti teams
Cry Macho
Director: Clint Eastwood
Stars: Clint Eastwood, Dwight Yoakam
Rating:**
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
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