"Southern Serenade," with its references to life below the Mason-Dixon Line, is a highlight of
Bill Champlin's album
He Started to Sing, making it an appropriate title song for this EP, which also includes the lively duet between
Champlin and his wife
Tamara Champlin, "Love Is Gonna Find You." But the real find here is an eight-minute live medley of two older songs, "Lovers Tonight" and "Take It Uptown," recorded in December 1994.
Champlin plays and sings funky yet sophisticated pop/R&B, sounding let off the leash from his day job with
Chicago when he gets to be a frontman, and this disc is a good sampler of what he can do.
–
William Ruhlmann, Rovi