Sentimental songsmith Peter Cetera was in fine form Friday during his first tour in a decade, posing for fans' photos and reminiscing about his rural Idaho home.
A former bassist and lead vocalist for the group Chicago, Cetera has made a name of his own with such past chart-topping hits as "Glory of Love" and "Even a Fool Can See."On Friday, he performed mostly selections from his current work "One Clear Voice," including the hit single "(I Wanna Take) Forever Tonight." Released as a duet with Crystal Bernard, star of NBC's se- ries "Wings," the song is typical Cetera fare, posing his clear, strong vocals against the breathy backdrop of a female voice.
Substituting band member and backup singer Dana Glover as duet partner, the end result was another romantic classic for a man already known for his sentimental touch. In the past, Cetera has sung with the likes of Cher, Amy Grant and Chaka Khan. On his new album, he teams up with Bernard, his daughter Claire and country artist Ronna Reeves.
Picking out friends from Idaho, Cetera was candid about his desire to move with his daughter to the rural West and of their life to- gether. Her voice appears on the new album with the single, "The Lucky Ones."
"To those people from Sun Valley - this is what I do for a living," he joked, prefacing an energetic song chronicling his daughter's growing-up years. "I didn't want to raise her in Timbuctu - so I moved to Idaho."
Cetera's performance Friday at the Huntsman Center on the campus of the University of Utah was his fourth in 10 days and his first in 10 years, he told the appreciative crowd.
"Remember this one?" He strummed a few unintelligible chords on an acoustic guitar, then grinned at the front-row fans' puzzlement. "No? Maybe you'll remember this. . ." The first several bars of his Chicago-era hit "If You Leave Me Now" were immediately recognizable.
Later, he offered such Chicago classics as "You're the Inspira- tion" along with a few of his own, like "Restless Heart," a chart-topping hit from his "World Falling Down" album; "One Good Woman," from his second solo al-bum "One More Story;" and the duet "The Next Time I Fall," from the album "Solitude/Solitaire."
Cetera's career is one that has spanned the '70s and '80s with Chi- cago, and into the '90s on his own. Consequently, his albums reflect such diversity of style, with his new work a compilation of modern sounds alongside some remakes, like ABBA's smash hit "S.O.S." which he performs with Reeves. Others, like the duet with Bernard, are timeless romantic classics.
Whatever the recipe, Cetera's spell is effective. By the show's close Friday, the crowd stood to its feet to call the artist back no fewer than three times.