{"id":25941,"date":"2023-09-12T05:30:18","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T09:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=25941"},"modified":"2023-09-12T09:04:39","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T13:04:39","slug":"jason-scheff-nothins-gonna-stop-him-part-2-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/12\/jason-scheff-nothins-gonna-stop-him-part-2-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Scheff: Nothin’s Gonna Stop Him (part 2 of 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Almost from the start, you were placing some of your compositions on the group\u2019s albums. Were they songs that you already had, or did you write to the strengths of Chicago?<\/b><\/p>\n

I signed a publishing deal; that\u2019s what got me to the band. I started running with Bobby Caldwell; I wrote a song trying to get his attention. Boz Scaggs ended up cutting it in 1988. \u201cHeart of Mine\u201d was Boz\u2019s comeback single.<\/p>\n

So I joined Chicago as the tenor lead vocalist, and sang a huge hit on Chicago 18<\/i>, \u201cWill You Still Love Me?\u201d All of this stuff was happening in the mid \u201880s, and it was a great time. On the first album with David Foster, I had one song, \u201cNothin\u2019s Gonna Stop Us Now.\u201d And then, from that point on, I was lucky. We worked hard, continually. They were still out there playing a lot of dates. And if you\u2019ve got families and obligations, there wasn\u2019t a lot of time to do anything else. We\u2019d get off the road, and the guys would be taking vacations. But I was constantly writing.<\/p>\n

And you bet<\/i> I was writing pointed towards Chicago! I\u2019m in the band, so it\u2019s the best way to get your songs heard. So, I really became the principal songwriter of the group during my years. I had the most songs on the records, because I had tons to choose from.<\/p>\n

Beyond Chicago, your hundreds of session credits as a vocalist are really varied. What\u2019s the most unusual session that you\u2019ve ever done?<\/b><\/p>\n

Okay, that\u2019s easy: Britney Spears! Rodney Jerkins was producing [remotely] from Miami, so he wasn\u2019t even in the studio; we had him in our headphones. It was a collection of a dozen of the greatest L.A. session singers all in one room. It was a group vocal, and it was for a movie called Crossroads<\/i>. We were singing \u201cI Love Rock \u2019N\u2019 Roll.\u201d It was unison, so you could\u2019ve gotten anybody<\/i> to do this, but I was looking at a who\u2019s who of session singers including Chris Thompson from Manfred Mann\u2019s Earth Band, the guy who sang \u201cBlinded by the Light.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"I was looking down the line, and these people were just cocked and loaded, ready to give this performance. It was this incredible sound, but then Rodney said, \u201cThat was really great, but what I\u2019m looking for is \u2026 you need to sound bad<\/i>, like you\u2019re drunk.\u201d I was watching these people freaking out: \u201cWhat<\/i>?\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

But I was thinking, \u201cYou picked the right guy. I\u2019m going to give you what you need.\u201d And I did! The girl standing next to me was recoiling, and I was laughing to myself. I\u2019m a professional. I\u2019m that much of a pro. I can give you what you want.<\/p>\n

You left Chicago in 2016, but you\u2019ve stayed very busy with other musical pursuits. You released a solo album, <\/b>Here I Am<\/b><\/i>, in 2019. And you lead a band called Chicago Nights. What inspired you to put that project together?<\/b><\/p>\n

I started doing some stuff of my own; I did a cruise and basically played and sang the music that I\u2019d been performing for over 30 years. I didn\u2019t how it would go over, but people just loved it.<\/p>\n

I just did my second Symphony date of the year. I really love those, too, because the music is perfect for it. My music director Bo Cooper based his work off of the Jimmie Haskell orchestrations from the \u201870s; they\u2019re amazing. So I do dates as Jason Scheff\u2019s Chicago Nights and then some others as Jason Scheff\u2019s Chicago Nights at the Symphony. It\u2019s just a blast!<\/p>\n

You\u2019re playing golf in this year\u2019s American Century Golf Tournament in Tahoe. How did you get involved in that event?<\/b><\/p>\n

Jay DeMarcus has been doing it for 15 or 16 years, I think. Jonathan Thomas \u2013 the CEO of American Century Investments \u2013 and I have become close over the last few years, and he invited me. I thought, \u201cMan, everybody<\/i> wants to play in that thing! So, thank you.\u201d I love to play golf. I just played in the BMW Pro Am Tournament down in Greenville, South Carolina. And then I went on to a second one in Kiawah Island for football player Greg Olsen. I\u2019m \u201cgetting some reps in\u201d so that I\u2019m ready for Tahoe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… Almost from the start, you were placing some of your compositions on the group\u2019s albums. Were they songs that you already had, or did you write […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25948,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,51],"tags":[5230,5229],"class_list":["post-25941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-pop","tag-chicago","tag-jason-scheff","cat-41-id","cat-51-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25941"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26011,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25941\/revisions\/26011"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}