In 1972, Niles East High School graduate, Chicago-area singer-songwriter Bill Quateman, who had started performing at the age of 14 in local coffeehouses in the early ’60s, appeared to be on the verge of becoming a major star. He was signed to Columbia Records and given special treatment by label head Clive Davis, at the time one of the most powerful men in the music industry. Quateman was given a top-notch production team, backing musicians (Elton John’s sidemen Davey Johnstone, Caleb Quaye and Ray Cooper) and finances; and given full artistic freedom to make the album he wanted to make. The resulting 1972 self-titled debut received glowing reviews, hailed as “musically rich and satisfying,” with the songs “lyrically and emotionally tapping into people’s feelings with such poignancy, honesty and sincerity.” The album got strong airplay in Chicago, with the lead single “Only Love” https://youtu.be/JEkPAedBP-c reaching #86 on the Billboard charts. The album went on to sell 100,000 copies, which is considered a success for an unknown act.
So, then what happened? Well, as Bill was in the process of making his follow-up album, Clive Davis was forced out of Columbia in a misappropriation of funds scandal, and the new regime saw things quite differently. Gone was Bill’s artistic freedom, and the new producer assigned to him wanted to change his sound and style to make him into the next Tony Orlando. Quateman refused. He wanted to release his second album the way he made it and intended. Columbia refused to release the album, but maintained ownership of the record while shelving it, and dropped Quateman from the label.
Quateman continued to play clubs in and around Chicago, but it was several years before another label would sign him. Finally in 1977, Quateman signed with RCA Victor and over the next two years released three albums – Night After Night, Shot in the Dark and Just Like You. Quateman continued to be surrounded by a stellar lineup of sidemen on the recordings, but only Night After Nightcharted, and that only reaching #129. Live, the intimacy of Quateman’s performances and persona didn’t allow him to transcend to a concert hall environment, limiting RCA’s marketing ability.
Now living in Los Angeles and doing some commercial jingle work, Quateman joined on an original soundtrack for the 1987 Japanese film Akireta Deka (Atlantic) with two songs “Talk to Me” https://youtu.be/2v4jToP8-8g and “Love is a Mystery.”
By the time his first child, son Dylan, was born in 1987, he was exhausted by the grind of the L.A. music scene. With enough money coming in from singing on commercials and from royalties paid by other performers who had started recording his old songs, he decided to stay home and raise Dylan and later, a daughter, India Rain, who was born in 1995.
“It was a no-brainer, a non-decision,” he once told Rick Kogan at the Chicago Tribune. “I have always done what charmed me, and watching the miracle of life unfold was the most charming and important thing I have ever witnessed.”
He and his wife divorced, and he became a single dad. He took other jobs — a waiter, a production assistant — to help support the family. He did not talk about his musical past with his kids. The stories of club dates and broken promises felt to him, he says, “like bits from a photo album.” But music was still part of his life, manifested in performances of Beatles songs at his son’s school and the ongoing creation of a children’s movie musical.
“Retired,” Quateman also engrossed himself in studying wholistic health and natural medicine under the tutelage of wholistic professor of psychiatry at Northwestern University, Dr. Bruce Boyd.
By the late ’90’s, people kept contacting him, asking about his music and where they could get his albums. Quateman got together with his brother, regained the rights to his music including the never released second album, and began once again offering his long out-of-print catalog on his own Next of Skin label. He began performing again, and found that there has been an underground interest in his music. In 2002, he reunited with fellow musician Buzzy Feiten, sitting in on sessions that resulted in the album Trust (Dreamsville), that was part of a “Buzzy Feiten Works” series of releases. Quateman even released a live album Many Lives in 2004 which included reworked versions of some of his classic songs coupled with some new compositions.
That same year, Quateman merged music with his children’s upbringing, and along with his nine-year-old daughter India released a book/CD package Daddy Daughter Dinner Dance (AngelMind ISBN 978-0972986601). In a description of the project, “These are snapshots of life, of a 3- to 6-year-old little girl, her single-parent father and their blended family. She appears in drawings, he appears in tongues, using poetry to transcribe his daughter’s description of her drawings, and prose to describe how they’ve made a life together, in a way that resembles a dance. In this picture we see the simple beauty between leading and following, as two partners do a tender boogie glide through growing up together. These universal stories are like recipes for how-it-can-work, by example, in the new, most prevalent form of family, the blended or stepfamily.” A soundtrack CD accompanies the book.
Quateman’s last musical project came in 2009 when he composed “Last Night, I Dream We Fixed the World” www.musicpage.com/billquateman as a special tribute for the Project-Peace on Earth, which was globally broadcast on September 11, 2009 and released to benefit the cause.
Ultimately, that was not enough to necessarily revive his music career. With his interest in wholistic health, Quateman became involved in business development in the field of orthomolecular treatment and hair analysis testing with the California-based Advanced BioCell. Quateman is now a director in the company that focuses on personal nutrition testing, foundational health and regenerative wellness counseling.
Discography:
1973 Bill Quateman (Columbia 31761)
Reissued on CD in 2000 (Next of Skin 2000),
then again in 2009 on Renaissance (RMED-253)
1977 Night After Night (RCA 2027)
Reissued by Classic Music Vault in 2014 (CMV 9878)
1977 Shot in the Dark (RCA 2434)
Reissued by Classic Music Vault in 2014 (CMV 9789)
1979 Just Like You (RCA 2879)
Reissued in 2014, remastered with three previously unreleased bonus tracks,
by Classic Music Vault (CMV 9879)
1987 Akireta Deka original soundtrack (Atlantic P-13607)
2001 The Almost Eve of Everything (Next of Skin BQ 2001)
This is Bill Quateman’s second album, previously unreleased.
Reissued in 2014, remastered with three more previously unreleased tracks,
by Classic Music Vault (CMV 9876)
2002 Trust (Dreamsville YDCD-0088)
Reissued by Classic Music Vault in 2014 (CMV 9986)
2004 Daddy Daughter Dinner Dance (AngelMind ISBN 978-0972986601)
2004 Many Lives (Next of Skin BQ 2004)
2009 Last Night, I Dream We Fixed the World (Project-Peace)
2014 Sketchpad: The Unreleased Demos (Classic Music Vault CMV 9880)
2014 The Almost Eve of Everything (CMV 9987)