Two Country Queens from Buffalo and WikiKitty Wells & Dolly Parton
Kitty Wells
Background information Birth name Ellen Muriel Deason Also known as The Queen of Country Music Born August 30, 1919 (1919-08-30) (age 89) Origin Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. Genre(s) Country, Honky Tonk,Nashville Sound, gospel Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter Instrument(s) Vocals, guitar Years active 1949 – present Label(s) RCA VictorDecca / MCACapricornRuboccaSouthern Tracks Associated acts Red Foley, Webb Pierce, Johnnie Wright Ellen Muriel Deason (born August 30, 1919), known professionally
as Kitty Wells, is an American country music singer. Her 1952 hit
recording, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels," made
her the first female country singer to top the U.S. country
charts, and turned her into the first female country star. Her
Top 10 hits continued until the mid-1960s, inspiring a long list of
female country singers who came to prominence in the 1960s.
Wells's success in the 1950s and 1960s was so enormous that she
still ranks as the sixth most successful female vocalist in the
history of the Billboard country charts according to historian Joel
Whitburn's book The Top 40 Country Hits, behind Dolly Parton,
Loretta Lynn, Reba McEntire, Tammy Wynette, and Tanya Tucker.
Wells was the third country music artist, after Roy Acuff and
Hank Williams, to receive the Grammy Lifetime Achievement
Award in 1991, as well as being the eighth woman and first
Caucasian woman to receive the honor. In 1976, she was inducted
into the Country Music Hall of Fame. She is as of 2009 - at age
89 - the oldest living member of the Hall of Fame. Wells'
accomplishments earned her the moniker "The Queen of Country
Music
Dolly Parton
Background information Birth name Dolly Rebecca Parton Born January 19, 1946 (1946-01-19) (age 63)Sevierville, Tennessee, U.S. Genre(s) Country, country pop, bluegrass Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, actress, author, philanthropist,
musician, businesswoman, advocate for children's education
(Imagination Library) Instrument(s) Vocals, guitar, banjo, autoharp, piano, fingernails. Voice type(s) Soprano[1] Years active 1959–present Label(s) Goldband (1959-1965)Monument (1965-1967)RCA (1967-1986)CBS (1987-1995)Rising Tide (1995-1998)Decca (1997-1998)Blue Eye (1998-1999)Sugar Hill (1998-2005)Dolly (2006-Present) Associated acts Porter Wagoner, Kenny Rogers, Emmylou Harris,
Linda Ronstadt, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Shania Twain
Stella Parton, The Larkins, Altan, Billy Ray Cyrus Website dollypartonmusic.netdollyparton.com (launched August 2009; not fully operational at
August 13, 2009) Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American
singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and
philanthropist, best known for her work in country music.
In the four-and-a-half decades since her national-chart début,
she remains one of the most-successful female artists in the
history of the country genre which achieved her the title of 'The
Queen of Country Music'[2], with 25 number-one singles,[3] and a
record 41 top-10 country albums.[4] She has the distinction of
having performed on a top-five country hit in each of the last five
decades[5] and is the only artist to score a number-one country
single in each of the past four decades.[6]
She is known for her distinctive mountain soprano,[1] sometimes
bawdy humor, flamboyant dress sense and voluptuous figure.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Foreclosers
weblog/wEssays archives
home
How Many Foreclosures Will Hit the Market? (May 1, 2006) OK people, stay sharp. We're going to thread our way through a lot of housing statistics and reach a mind-boggling conclusion: 5 million foreclosures, 5 million investment/2nd homes dumped on the market and bank/thrift losses of $500 billion. Farfetched? Read on. First up is housing Bull Michael Youngblood, managing director of asset-backed securities (a.k.a. mortgage-backed securities) at Friedman, Billings Ramsey who states in this week's Barron's: "What dominates the mortgage market is income." In other words, if people have jobs, housing will continue to rise. He goes on to assert that interest-only loans are not more dangerous than fixed-rate mortgages. Leaving aside that Mr. Youngblood earns his living selling "securitized" mortgages (if people stop paying the mortgage, the value of the security plummets--not that you'd hear that from Mr. Youngblood), let's look at his thesis. The chart above shows job growth in Colorado to be better than in the nation as a whole (unemployment is a low 4.7% nationally). Next, look at the chart of Colorado adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs). Even as fixed-rate mortgage rates dropped to historic lows, over 50% of the loans in Colorado were ARMs. According to Mr. Youngblood, everything should be hunky-dory. But the reality is that foreclosures are skyrocketing in Colorado, and are 3 times higher than the national average; from National Foreclosures Up 63 Percent From a Year Ago:
Colorado’s foreclosure rate leapfrogged to highest among the states thanks to a 31 percent increase in new foreclosures from the previous month. The state reported 5,392 properties entering some stage of foreclosure in March, a foreclosure rate of one new foreclosure for every 339 households — more than three times the national average. So much for Youngblood's cheery (if baseless) thesis. Here is a state with strong job growth and plentiful ARMs--and foreclosures are leaping. The stark reality of foreclosures is not isolated to Colorado, as this chart of Texas foreclosures shows. The situation in Boston is equally perilous, as reported in the Homeowners stretched perilously from the Christian Science Monitor of 3/21/06:
Fully 27.1 percent of Boston's homeowners with a mortgage spent at least half their gross income on housing in 2004, according to the latest census figures available. Those costs, which include utilities and insurance as well as mortgage payments, were more than double the national rate of 11.7 percent and topped New York (25.9 percent), Los Angeles (26.5), San Francisco (20.4), and Chicago (20.3). Of the 25 biggest cities, only Miami had a higher rate (35.8 percent). The number of homes sold in Massachusetts dropped a whopping 21 percent in January compared with a year ago, the largest year-to-year decrease in monthly home sales in a decade. As a result, home values have begun to soften. Such pressures are forcing a rising number of homeowners to erase their debts by forfeiting their homes. Foreclosure filings in the county that includes Boston nearly doubled in January from a year ago, ForeclosuresMass says. When 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages were standard, a rise in interest rates would have little effect on current homeowners. But in an era of adjustable-rate loans, it can exact a toll which is especially difficult for minorities, housing experts say, because they are most likely to hold higher-cost subprime loans. USA Today chips in with this story on the woes facing the millions of homeowners stuck with ARMs: Some homeowners struggle to keep up with adjustable rates
When they refinanced their home two years ago to pay off some bills, Robert, now 78, was working as a deliveryman. But his employer went out of business last April. Now he and Lorraine, 72, a retired nurse, are both seeking work. The rate on their mortgage has jumped from 7% to 10.5%. Now, the real estate market is cooling, interest rates are rising and tens of thousands more Americans are starting to have trouble paying their mortgages. Nearly 25% of mortgages — 10 million — carry adjustable interest rates. And most of them went to people with subpar credit ratings who accepted higher interest rates, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Already, in West Virginia, Alabama, Michigan, Missouri and Tennessee, about one in five homeowners with a high-interest (subprime) ARM was at least 30 days late at the end of last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. After 90 days, the foreclosure clock starts ticking. These adjustable-rate loans were concentrated in the hottest markets, such as California, where about 60% of all loans last year were interest-only or payment-option ARMs. That's the highest such rate in the country. Of the 7.7 million households who took out ARMs over the past two years to buy or refinance, up to 1 million could lose their homes through foreclosure over the next five years because they won't be able to afford their mortgage payments, and their homes will be worth less than they owe, according to Cagan's research. The losses to the banking industry, he estimates, will exceed $100 billion. That's less than the damage from the savings-and-loan crisis in the 1990s, which cost the country $150 billion. The Browns in Missouri have had a happy ending. The lender, Saxon Mortgage Services in Texas, declined to discuss the Browns' case with USA TODAY last week. But within 24 hours of a call from a reporter, Saxon agreed to give the couple a fixed-rate loan at 7%. Hmm, nothing like a little media snooping to pry a fixed-rate mortgage out of the woodwork, eh? This tale reveals how subprime lenders have taken advantage of desperate/ hopeful/ignorant homeowners who are stunned to find their rates rising 3.5% in one bound. Realtors, of course, couldn't be happier selling empty condos and houses by the millions to unwary investors. Second Home Sales Hit Another Record in 2005; Market Share Rises
27.7 percent of all homes purchased in 2005 were for investment and another 12.2 percent were vacation homes. All together, there were 3.34 million second-home sales in 2005, up 16.0 percent from an upwardly revised total of 2.88 million in 2004. The market share of second homes rose from 36.0 percent of transactions in 2004 to 39.9 percent in 2005. Vacation-home sales increased 16.9 percent last year to a record 1.02 million from a downwardly revised 872,000 in 2004, while investment-home sales rose 15.7 percent to a record 2.32 million in 2005 from an upwardly revised 2.00 million in 2004.* As the market softens, investors are finding that they can't dump their units for love nor money. Here is a Washington Post story investors hurting; Doors Close for Real Estate Speculators After Pushing Up Prices, Investors Are Left Holding Too Many Homes. Just for context: according to the National Association of Realtors, There were 7,072,000 existing-home sales in all of 2005, up 4.2 percent from 6,784,000 in 2004. This is the fifth consecutive annual record; NAR began tracking the sales series in 1968. According the U.S. Census Bureau, 1.3 million new homes sold in 2005.The Census Bureau also reports that there are approximately 75 million homeowners in the U.S., and 33 milllion occupied rental units. Let's summarize:
millions of recent buyers are spending more than 50% of their income on housing, leaving them extraordinarily vulnerable to job losses and ARM resets.
As the chart to the right from the FDIC shows, 5% of U.S. homebuyers (about 4 million) would never have qualified had mortgage standards not been radically lowered over the past decade (see my story on FDIC predicts foreclosures for more on this chart.)
Some 10 million properties have been purchased in the past 3 years as investments (or if you prefer fig leafs, as "second homes"). Many of these investors are vulnerable to the same ARM resets and job losses subprime borrowers face. In a nutshell: in the past 3 years, 10 million people signed ARM mortgages which will reset soon, and 10 million housing units were sold to investors. Foreclosures are already rising, even though job growth is strong and unemployment is low. In addition, 4 million recent homebuyers are subprime risks whose grasp on their homes is tenuous indeed. If 5 million marginal bubble-buyers fold their hands due to ARM resets or job loss, what will that do to the value of those 10 million investment units? Let's say the resulting drop in values causes half of those empty, cash-flow negative units to get dumped on the market (or foreclosed upon). Who's going to buy these 10 million properties? One last chart. Bank reserves--the cash lenders keep to cover "bad loans"--is at an all-time low. That leaves lenders extraordinarily vulnerable to losses should foreclosures rise. The expert quoted above estimated bank and thrift losses of $100 billion should 1 million homes go into foreclosure, so what happens if 5 million properties default? Simple extrapolation suggests losses would exceed $500 billion. Does that sound extreme? Not at all, when you consider that the dot-com bubble bursting erased at least $1 trillion in equity. Compared to that, a mere half-trillion in losses doesn't seem unrealistic. For more on this subject and a wide array of other topics, please visit my weblog.
copyright © 2006 Charles Hugh Smith. All rights reserved in all media. I would be honored if you linked this wEssay to your site, or printed a copy for your own use.
home
How Many Foreclosures Will Hit the Market? (May 1, 2006) OK people, stay sharp. We're going to thread our way through a lot of housing statistics and reach a mind-boggling conclusion: 5 million foreclosures, 5 million investment/2nd homes dumped on the market and bank/thrift losses of $500 billion. Farfetched? Read on. First up is housing Bull Michael Youngblood, managing director of asset-backed securities (a.k.a. mortgage-backed securities) at Friedman, Billings Ramsey who states in this week's Barron's: "What dominates the mortgage market is income." In other words, if people have jobs, housing will continue to rise. He goes on to assert that interest-only loans are not more dangerous than fixed-rate mortgages. Leaving aside that Mr. Youngblood earns his living selling "securitized" mortgages (if people stop paying the mortgage, the value of the security plummets--not that you'd hear that from Mr. Youngblood), let's look at his thesis. The chart above shows job growth in Colorado to be better than in the nation as a whole (unemployment is a low 4.7% nationally). Next, look at the chart of Colorado adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs). Even as fixed-rate mortgage rates dropped to historic lows, over 50% of the loans in Colorado were ARMs. According to Mr. Youngblood, everything should be hunky-dory. But the reality is that foreclosures are skyrocketing in Colorado, and are 3 times higher than the national average; from National Foreclosures Up 63 Percent From a Year Ago:
Colorado’s foreclosure rate leapfrogged to highest among the states thanks to a 31 percent increase in new foreclosures from the previous month. The state reported 5,392 properties entering some stage of foreclosure in March, a foreclosure rate of one new foreclosure for every 339 households — more than three times the national average. So much for Youngblood's cheery (if baseless) thesis. Here is a state with strong job growth and plentiful ARMs--and foreclosures are leaping. The stark reality of foreclosures is not isolated to Colorado, as this chart of Texas foreclosures shows. The situation in Boston is equally perilous, as reported in the Homeowners stretched perilously from the Christian Science Monitor of 3/21/06:
Fully 27.1 percent of Boston's homeowners with a mortgage spent at least half their gross income on housing in 2004, according to the latest census figures available. Those costs, which include utilities and insurance as well as mortgage payments, were more than double the national rate of 11.7 percent and topped New York (25.9 percent), Los Angeles (26.5), San Francisco (20.4), and Chicago (20.3). Of the 25 biggest cities, only Miami had a higher rate (35.8 percent). The number of homes sold in Massachusetts dropped a whopping 21 percent in January compared with a year ago, the largest year-to-year decrease in monthly home sales in a decade. As a result, home values have begun to soften. Such pressures are forcing a rising number of homeowners to erase their debts by forfeiting their homes. Foreclosure filings in the county that includes Boston nearly doubled in January from a year ago, ForeclosuresMass says. When 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages were standard, a rise in interest rates would have little effect on current homeowners. But in an era of adjustable-rate loans, it can exact a toll which is especially difficult for minorities, housing experts say, because they are most likely to hold higher-cost subprime loans. USA Today chips in with this story on the woes facing the millions of homeowners stuck with ARMs: Some homeowners struggle to keep up with adjustable rates
When they refinanced their home two years ago to pay off some bills, Robert, now 78, was working as a deliveryman. But his employer went out of business last April. Now he and Lorraine, 72, a retired nurse, are both seeking work. The rate on their mortgage has jumped from 7% to 10.5%. Now, the real estate market is cooling, interest rates are rising and tens of thousands more Americans are starting to have trouble paying their mortgages. Nearly 25% of mortgages — 10 million — carry adjustable interest rates. And most of them went to people with subpar credit ratings who accepted higher interest rates, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Already, in West Virginia, Alabama, Michigan, Missouri and Tennessee, about one in five homeowners with a high-interest (subprime) ARM was at least 30 days late at the end of last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. After 90 days, the foreclosure clock starts ticking. These adjustable-rate loans were concentrated in the hottest markets, such as California, where about 60% of all loans last year were interest-only or payment-option ARMs. That's the highest such rate in the country. Of the 7.7 million households who took out ARMs over the past two years to buy or refinance, up to 1 million could lose their homes through foreclosure over the next five years because they won't be able to afford their mortgage payments, and their homes will be worth less than they owe, according to Cagan's research. The losses to the banking industry, he estimates, will exceed $100 billion. That's less than the damage from the savings-and-loan crisis in the 1990s, which cost the country $150 billion. The Browns in Missouri have had a happy ending. The lender, Saxon Mortgage Services in Texas, declined to discuss the Browns' case with USA TODAY last week. But within 24 hours of a call from a reporter, Saxon agreed to give the couple a fixed-rate loan at 7%. Hmm, nothing like a little media snooping to pry a fixed-rate mortgage out of the woodwork, eh? This tale reveals how subprime lenders have taken advantage of desperate/ hopeful/ignorant homeowners who are stunned to find their rates rising 3.5% in one bound. Realtors, of course, couldn't be happier selling empty condos and houses by the millions to unwary investors. Second Home Sales Hit Another Record in 2005; Market Share Rises
27.7 percent of all homes purchased in 2005 were for investment and another 12.2 percent were vacation homes. All together, there were 3.34 million second-home sales in 2005, up 16.0 percent from an upwardly revised total of 2.88 million in 2004. The market share of second homes rose from 36.0 percent of transactions in 2004 to 39.9 percent in 2005. Vacation-home sales increased 16.9 percent last year to a record 1.02 million from a downwardly revised 872,000 in 2004, while investment-home sales rose 15.7 percent to a record 2.32 million in 2005 from an upwardly revised 2.00 million in 2004.* As the market softens, investors are finding that they can't dump their units for love nor money. Here is a Washington Post story investors hurting; Doors Close for Real Estate Speculators After Pushing Up Prices, Investors Are Left Holding Too Many Homes. Just for context: according to the National Association of Realtors, There were 7,072,000 existing-home sales in all of 2005, up 4.2 percent from 6,784,000 in 2004. This is the fifth consecutive annual record; NAR began tracking the sales series in 1968. According the U.S. Census Bureau, 1.3 million new homes sold in 2005.The Census Bureau also reports that there are approximately 75 million homeowners in the U.S., and 33 milllion occupied rental units. Let's summarize:
millions of recent buyers are spending more than 50% of their income on housing, leaving them extraordinarily vulnerable to job losses and ARM resets.
As the chart to the right from the FDIC shows, 5% of U.S. homebuyers (about 4 million) would never have qualified had mortgage standards not been radically lowered over the past decade (see my story on FDIC predicts foreclosures for more on this chart.)
Some 10 million properties have been purchased in the past 3 years as investments (or if you prefer fig leafs, as "second homes"). Many of these investors are vulnerable to the same ARM resets and job losses subprime borrowers face. In a nutshell: in the past 3 years, 10 million people signed ARM mortgages which will reset soon, and 10 million housing units were sold to investors. Foreclosures are already rising, even though job growth is strong and unemployment is low. In addition, 4 million recent homebuyers are subprime risks whose grasp on their homes is tenuous indeed. If 5 million marginal bubble-buyers fold their hands due to ARM resets or job loss, what will that do to the value of those 10 million investment units? Let's say the resulting drop in values causes half of those empty, cash-flow negative units to get dumped on the market (or foreclosed upon). Who's going to buy these 10 million properties? One last chart. Bank reserves--the cash lenders keep to cover "bad loans"--is at an all-time low. That leaves lenders extraordinarily vulnerable to losses should foreclosures rise. The expert quoted above estimated bank and thrift losses of $100 billion should 1 million homes go into foreclosure, so what happens if 5 million properties default? Simple extrapolation suggests losses would exceed $500 billion. Does that sound extreme? Not at all, when you consider that the dot-com bubble bursting erased at least $1 trillion in equity. Compared to that, a mere half-trillion in losses doesn't seem unrealistic. For more on this subject and a wide array of other topics, please visit my weblog.
copyright © 2006 Charles Hugh Smith. All rights reserved in all media. I would be honored if you linked this wEssay to your site, or printed a copy for your own use.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
CHicago Transit authority
Chicago (band)
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Chicago
Chicago's current line-up (L-R): Walter Parazaider, Lee Loughnane, James Pankow, Tris Imboden, Robert Lamm, Jason Scheff, Keith Howland, Bill Champlin
Background information
Also known as
The Big Thing, The Chicago Transit Authority
Origin
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Genre(s)
Jazz-rockRockPop rock
Years active
1967–Present
Label(s)
Columbia, Warner Bros., Rhino
Website
ChicagoTheBand.com
Members
Robert Lamm (1967–)James Pankow (1967–)Lee Loughnane (1967–)Walter Parazaider (1967–)
Bill Champlin (1981–)Jason Scheff (1985–)Tris Imboden (1990–)Keith Howland (1995–)
Former members
Terry Kath (1967–1978 accidental death)Peter Cetera (1967–1985)Danny Seraphine (1967–1990)
Laudir DeOliveira (1973–1981)Donnie Dacus (1978–1980)Chris Pinnick (1980–1985)Dawayne Bailey (1986–1994)Bruce Gaitsch (1995)
This article is about the American pop-rock-jazz band. For other uses, see Chicago (disambiguation).
Chicago is a rock band formed in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois. The band began as a politically charged, sometimes experimental, rock band and later moved to a predominately softer sound, becoming famous for producing a number of hit ballads. They had a steady stream of hits throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Second only to the Beach Boys, Chicago, in terms of singles and albums, is one of the longest running and most successful U.S. pop/rock and roll groups. [1] According to Billboard, Chicago was the leading U.S. singles charting group during the 1970s.
Biography
Beginnings
The band was formed when a group of DePaul University music students began playing a series of late-night jams at clubs on and off campus. They added more members, eventually growing to seven players, and went professional as a cover band called The Big Thing. The band featured an unusual and unusually versatile line-up of instrumentalists, including saxophonist Walter Parazaider, trombonist James Pankow, and trumpet player Lee Loughnane, along with more traditional rock instruments — guitarist Terry Kath, keyboardist Robert Lamm, drummer Danny Seraphine, and bassist Peter Cetera (who was the last to join the original group). While gaining some success as a cover band, the group worked on original songs and, in June 1968, moved to Los Angeles, California under the guidance of their friend and manager James William Guercio, and signed with Columbia Records. After the move west, The Big Thing changed their name to Chicago Transit Authority.
Their first record(released in April 1969), the eponymous The Chicago Transit Authority, was an audacious debut: a sprawling double album, virtually unheard of for a rookie band (only "Freak Out!" by the Mothers of Invention and "Loosen Up Naturally" by Sons of Champlin, featuring Bill Champlin, who would later become a member of Chicago, preceded it) that included jazzy instrumentals, extended jams featuring Latin percussion, and experimental, feedback-laden guitar abstraction. The album began to receive heavy airplay on the newly popular FM radio band; it included a number of pop-rock gems — "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?", "Beginnings", and "Questions 67 and 68" — which would later be edited to a radio-friendly length, released as singles, and eventually become rock radio staples.
Soon after the album's release, the band's name was shortened to simply Chicago, when the actual Chicago Transit Authority threatened legal action.
[edit] Chicago's heyday
The band's popularity exploded with the release of their second album, another double-LP set, which included several top-40 hits. This second album, titled Chicago (also known as Chicago II), was the group's breakthrough album. The centerpiece track was a thirteen-minute suite composed by James Pankow called "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon" (the structure of this suite was inspired by Pankow's love for classical music). The suite yielded two top ten hits, the crescendo-filled "Make Me Smile" and prom-ready ballad "Colour My World", both sung by Terry Kath. Among the other popular tracks on the album: Robert Lamm's dynamic but cryptic wah-wah-buttressed "25 or 6 to 4" (a reference to a songwriter trying to write at 25 or 26 minutes to 4 in the morning, sung by Cetera), and the lengthy war protest song "It Better End Soon." The band recorded and released music at a rate of at least one disc per year from their third album in 1971 on through the 1970s. During this period, the group's album titles invariably consisted of the band's name followed by a Roman numeral indicating the album's sequence in the group's canon, a naming pattern that lent an encyclopedic aura to the band's work. (The two exceptions to this scheme were the band's fourth album, a live boxed set entitled Chicago at Carnegie Hall and their twelfth album Hot Streets. While the live album itself did not bear a number, each of the four discs within the set was numbered Volumes I through IV.)
In 1971, Chicago released the ambitious quadruple-album live set, Chicago at Carnegie Hall Volumes I, II, III, and IV, consisting of live performances, mostly of music from their first three albums, from a week-long run at the famous venue (along with the James Gang and Led Zeppelin in 1969, one of the few rock bands to play the historic concert hall since the Beatles performed there on February 12, 1964). The performances and sound quality were judged sub-par; in fact, trombonist James Pankow went on record to say that "the horn section sounded like kazoos." The packaging of the album also contained some rather strident political messaging about how "We [youth] can change The System," including massive wall posters and voter registration information. Nevertheless, Chicago at Carnegie Hall went on to become the best-selling box set by a rock act, and held that distinction for 15 years.
The group bounced back in 1972 with their first single-disc release, Chicago V, a diverse set that reached number one on both the Billboard pop and jazz albums charts and yielded the Robert Lamm-composed-and-sung radio hit and perennial fan favorite "Saturday in the Park", which mixed everyday life and political yearning in a more subtle way. Chicago would long open their concerts with the hit song.
In 1973, the group's manager, Guercio, produced and directed Electra Glide in Blue, a movie about an Arizona motorcycle policeman. The movie starred Robert Blake, and featured Cetera, Kath, Loughnane, and Parazaider in supporting roles. The group also appeared prominently on the movie's soundtrack.
Other successful albums and singles followed in each of the succeeding years. 1973's Chicago VI topped the charts buoyed by the hits "Feelin' Stronger Every Day" and "Just You 'N' Me" and it was also the first of several albums to include Brazilian jazz percussionist Laudir DeOliveira. Chicago VII, the band's double-disc 1974 release, featured the Cetera-composed "Wishing You Were Here", sung by Terry Kath and Cetera with background vocals by Cetera and The Beach Boys and some fusion jazz. Chicago VII also provided one of the group's enduring signature tunes, the anthemic "(I've Been) Searchin' So Long," which started with as a soft ballad and culminated in a hard-rock conclusion featuring Terry Kath's electric guitar soloing against the Chicago horn section and a soaring string arrangement by Jimmie Haskell. "Happy Man," another song from Chicago VII, was also a popular favorite on FM radio, was a big hit in South America and subsequently covered by Tony Orlando and Dawn on their album To Be With You. Their 1975 release, Chicago VIII, featured the political allegory "Harry Truman" and the nostalgic Pankow-composed "Old Days". That summer also saw a very successful joint tour across America with The Beach Boys, with both acts performing seperately, then coming together for a rousing finale. The tour was considered one of the highest grossing in rock music up to that time.
Chicago gave a concert in Mèxico City in 1975 at the Auditorio Nacional which was highly appreciated by the attendants in spite of the fact that the Mexican press later reviewed it not as one of the band’s better performances, presumably for the band not being 'in the best of shape'. The tickets for the concert sold so fast that thousands of people were not able to get in, so Terry Kath asked those inside to applaud for those standing outside. Carmen Romano de Lòpez Portillo, the wife of Mèxico's then-President Josè Lòpez Portillo, is said to have been among the attendants in the first row.[citation needed]
But for all their effort, none of their singles went to number one until Chicago X in 1976, when Cetera's slow, exquisite ballad "If You Leave Me Now" climbed to the top of the charts. The song also won Chicago their only Grammy award, for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group in 1977. Ironically, the tune almost did not make the cut for the album; "If You Leave Me Now" was recorded at the very last minute. The huge success of the song would foreshadow a later reliance on ballads that would typecast the group on radio, despite the presence of mellower songs on all the previous albums. The group's 1977 release, Chicago XI, was another big success for the band; it included Cetera's hit ballad "Baby, What a Big Surprise" which became one of the group's last big hits of the decade.
[edit] Time of transition
1978 was a tragic and transitional year for Chicago. The year began with an acrimonious split with long-time manager James William Guercio(which had actually occurred three months earlier). Then, on January 23rd, guitarist/singer/songwriter/group co-founder Terry Kath died of an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound (reportedly incurred while cleaning his gun). Another version describes Kath's drunken last words to guitar tech Don Johnson: "Don't worry, guys. It isn't even loaded. See?".[1] Kath was the group's leader onstage, and for many longtime fans, its musical soul. Terry Kath's stunning death could have meant the end for Chicago, but encouraged by friends and admirers such as Doc Severinsen, the group held fast and soldiered on.
After auditioning over 30 potential replacements for Kath, Chicago decided upon guitarist/singer/songwriter Donnie Dacus, who joined the band in April 1978, just in time for the Hot Streets album and its lead-off single "Alive Again". The group was briefly re-energized by Dacus, whose long blond hair and rock star image stage presence seemingly overshadowed his musical abilities. The kinetic Dacus may have been out of character for the normally laid-back Chicago, but he could sing and play, and the band responded by delivering some of their tightest live performances ever. Hot Streets with producer Phil Ramone now at the helm, was Chicago's first album with an actual title rather than a number and was the band's first LP to have a picture of the band featured prominently on the cover, two moves that were seen by many as a way to indicate the band had changed following Kath's death. To a degree, the band returned to the old naming scheme on its subsequent releases, although most titles would now bear Arabic numerals rather than Roman numerals. The release of Hot Streets also marked a move somewhat away from the jazz-rock direction favored by Kath and towards more pop songs and ballads. Dacus didn't last long, only staying with the band through the 1979 album Chicago 13(Dacus is also featured in a promotional video on the DVD included in the Rhino Records Chicago box set from 2003). 13, again produced by Phil Ramone, was the group's first album not to contain a Top 40 hit.
1980's Chicago XIV, produced by Tom Dowd, relegated the horn section to the background on a number of tracks, and the album's two singles failed to make the Top 40. Believing the band to no longer be commercially viable, Columbia Records dropped them from its roster in 1981 and released a second "Greatest Hits" volume later that year to fulfill its contractual obligation.
The second major phase of the band's career took off in late 1981 with a new producer (David Foster), a new label (Warner Brothers), and the addition of keyboardist/guitarist/singer Bill Champlin and guitarist Chris Pinnick(who had played on XIV and subsequent tour); percussionist Laudir DeOliveira also departed at this time along with former Buckingham and sax player Marty Grebb, who had joined the group briefly for the XIV tour.
Foster brought in studio musicians for some of the tracks on Chicago 16 (including the core members of Toto), and Chicago once again topped the charts with the single "Hard to Say I'm Sorry/Get Away". This was followed up by a song that barely missed the top 20, "Love Me Tomorrow." The following album, Chicago 17, became the biggest selling album of the band's history, producing two more Top Ten singles ("You're the Inspiration" and "Hard Habit to Break") and two other singles ("Stay the Night" and "Along Comes a Woman") which charted in the top 20. Peter's brother, Kenny Cetera, was brought into the group for the 17 tour to add percussion and high harmony vocals.
Lead vocalist Peter Cetera's desire to record a second solo album (he'd done his first one in 1981) and not continue with the band's gruelling tour schedule caused him to leave Chicago in 1985. Although other band members (including Lamm and Champlin) have released solo material, Cetera has proved the most successful, topping the pop charts with The Karate Kid, Part II theme song "Glory of Love," and also with duets with Amy Grant, "The Next Time I Fall" and Cher with "After All".
[edit] The post-Cetera era
Cetera was replaced in September 1985 by bassist/singer Jason Scheff, who joined the band for the final Foster-produced album Chicago 18. This album was not as commercially successful as the previous two, but still produced the #3 single "Will You Still Love Me?", a Top 5 Adult Contemporary song ("If She Would Have Been Faithful..."), and also a high-tech and highly programmed version of "25 Or 6 To 4" with a concept video that got a lot of airplay on MTV. Soon after the album was recorded, the band hired guitarist Dawayne Bailey from Bob Seger's Silver Bullet Band. Bailey and Scheff had previously played in bands together, so Scheff introduced Bailey to the band in time for the Chicago 18 tour (Scheff and Bailey's first concert with Chicago took place on Friday Oct 17, 1986 in Rockford, Illinois).
Chicago playing in Queenstown, New Zealand.
In 1988, the band replaced producer Foster with Ron Nevison and Chas Sanford, and they topped the charts again with the Diane Warren-composed single "Look Away", from the album Chicago 19. The album also yielded three more Top 10 hits, all with Bill Champlin singing solo lead for the first time. Chicago 19 was followed in short order by Greatest Hits 1982-1989, which included the hit "What Kind Of Man Would I Be?," a slightly remixed tune originally included on 19. During 1989, Chicago did a reprise joint concert tour with The Beach Boys(and would do so once again in 1997).
The band continued in the decade of the 1990s, even though their popularity began to decline. There was also another personnel change: founding member Danny Seraphine was fired by the band in 1990 after a severe falling out with some of the others in the group and was replaced by session drummer Tris Imboden, who first appeared on the 1991 album Twenty 1. Imboden was well-known in the industry as the longtime drummer for Kenny Loggins. On a happier note, Chicago was recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on July 23, 1992.
In 1993, Chicago wrote and recorded their 22nd album, Stone of Sisyphus. Their record company at the time though, Reprise [Warner Music Group], was unhappy with the finished result, and thus the album was not released, although in succeeding years bootleg recordings of the album went on to surface worldwide, including over the internet. It is also rumored that the label would not release the album as a result of being unable to reach a licensing agreement with band management over the back catalog. Selected tracks from the unreleased album were later officially released on four international compilation greatest hits CDs and the Rhino Records 2003 box set, and four were re-recorded for band members' solo albums. One track, "The Pull", was performed live during their 1993 appearance at the Greek Theatre (taped for PBS, and released on video in 1993). The album finally did see a release in June 2008, almost 15 years after its completion.
Starting on their 1994 tour, Chicago attempted to merge their unique sound with Big Band music for the 1995 album Night & Day Big Band, which consisted of covers of songs originally recorded by artists like Sarah Vaughan, Glenn Miller, and Duke Ellington (from whom the album mainly got its inspiration). Session guitarist Bruce Gaitsch handled the guitar work, and the album featured guest appearances by Paul Shaffer of "David Letterman" fame, and Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry.
Keith Howland joined the band as guitarist in early 1995 to replace the departed Dawayne Bailey.
During a Los Angeles concert in 1997, Chicago teamed up with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra to perform a James Pankow/Dwight Mikelson orchestral arrangement of Pankow's rock epic "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon". Also during this year, the group released The Heart of Chicago 1967-1997, a compilation album which went gold and yielded the #1 Adult Contemporary hit "Here in My Heart."
In 1998, Chicago released Chicago XXV: The Christmas Album, which mixed traditional holiday favorites with an original Lee Loughnane composition. It went gold in the US. (The album was re-released with additional tracks in 2003, under the title What's It Gonna Be, Santa?) The album featured Howland's first, and to date only, lead vocal on a Chicago record.
The band released a live album in 1999, Chicago XXVI, which included only two of the many songs Cetera helped to write while in the group. In 2000, the group (minus Cetera) had the opportunity to tell their story in an episode of VH1's Behind The Music. This included gems such as Pankow relating this story from the early 1980s: "One record company said 'Man, if you get rid of the horn section, we'll sign ya... That's like tellin' Elton John to get rid of the piano." The show, however, was not without its difficulties. The episode put more emphasis on the tragic death of Terry Kath than their entire career combined. Cetera completely disowned the special and went so far as to not allow VH1 to use any of the songs he composed for the band, even declining to be interviewed (although stock footage of a Cetera interview does appear).
[edit] Chicago today
Despite the personnel changes over the years, the group still keeps active four decades after its founding. They are one of the few major rock groups that has never broken up or even taken an extended hiatus. And four of the six surviving founding members (major songwriters Lamm and Pankow, plus Loughnane and Parazaider) remain to this day providing continuity, while Bill Champlin has put in over 25 years with the band, Jason Scheff over 20, Tris Imboden over 15 and Keith Howland has logged over 13. The current lineup has been in place longer than any other in group history; 13 years and counting.
As a new century turned, the band licensed their entire recorded output to Rhino Records (after years with Columbia Records and Warner Brothers as well as their own short-lived label). In 2002, Rhino released a two-disc compilation, The Very Best of Chicago: Only The Beginning, which spans the band's entire career. Rhino has also begun releasing new versions of most of the band's albums, each including several bonus tracks; and in 2005 they released a compilation entitled Love Songs.
Chicago continues to appear in big and small venues world-wide. In 2004–2005 they toured jointly with the band Earth, Wind & Fire; a DVD recorded during that tour, Chicago/Earth, Wind & Fire - Live at the Greek Theatre, was certified platinum just two months after its release.
In 2006 the group released their first all-new studio album since Twenty 1, entitled Chicago XXX, on March 21, 2006. Two songs from this album, "Feel" and "Caroline" were performed live during Chicago's Fall 2005 tour; the studio recording of "Feel" debuted on WPLJ radio in New York in November 2005. "Feel" was the first single released from the new album. Curiously, the album contains two versions of the song; one with horns and an orchestral tag that echoes "Love Me Tomorrow," and another non-brass version. This could be seen rather strange for a band whose legacy is tied to their horn section. "Love Will Come Back" was the second single released from XXX. The album was produced by Rascal Flatts bassist Jay Demarcus, who is a friend of Chicago bassist Jason Scheff. Seven of the 12 tracks on XXX were co-written by Scheff, and the album included a large roster of guest musicians, supplanting band members in many cases.
While Chicago XXX did manage to debut at No. 41 on the US album chart besting some other weaker entries including Chicago XIV (July 1980) which hit US #71 and Twenty 1 (January 1991) which topped out at only US #66, it only remained in the top 200 for two weeks before limping off the chart.
During March 2006, Chicago made a multi-week appearance at the MGM Grand Las Vegas, which was repeated in May of the same year. In July 2006, the band made a series of US appearances with Huey Lewis & the News. Highlights of that tour included Chicago's Bill Champlin performing with Huey Lewis & the News on a couple of songs, members of Huey Lewis & the News contributing to Chicago's percussion-laden song, "I'm A Man," and Huey Lewis singing the lead vocal on Chicago's "Colour My World."
In early 2006, original drummer Danny Seraphine formed California Transit Authority, who play many of the older Chicago songs. At the end of 2006, the band played at CD USA's New Year's Eve party on Fremont Street in Las Vegas. Chicago toured the summer of 2007 with the band America. On October 2, 2007, Rhino Records released the two-disc The Best of Chicago: 40th Anniversary Edition, yet another greatest hits compilation spanning their entire forty years, similar to The Very Best of: Only the Beginning released just four years earlier.
June 17, 2008, finally saw the official release of the dynamic Stone of Sisyphus album by Rhino Records, recorded in 1993 and which had been originally slated for a March 1994 release until being shelved by Warner Records. The album contains eleven of the original twelve tracks (the raucous "Get on This" was left off), plus four demo recordings. Its official title is "Chicago XXXII: Stone of Sisyphus" (it was originally slated to be album #22). A remixed version of "Let's Take a Lifetime", with a newly recorded bridge and additional saxophones, is the first single released to AC radio.
[edit] Membership
Chicago Band Members (By Year)
1967 - 1975
Robert Lamm - keyboards, vocals
Terry Kath - guitar, vocals
Peter Cetera - bass, vocals
Danny Seraphine - drums
James Pankow - trombone, vocals
Lee Loughnane - trumpet, vocals
Walter Parazaider - saxophone, vocals
1975 - 1978
Robert Lamm - keyboards, vocals
Terry Kath - guitar, vocals
Peter Cetera - bass, vocals
Danny Seraphine - drums
Laudir DeOliveira - percussion
James Pankow - trombone, vocals
Lee Loughnane - trumpet, vocals
Walter Parazaider - saxophone, vocals
1978 - 1980
Robert Lamm - keyboards, vocals
Donnie Dacus - guitar, vocals
Peter Cetera - bass, vocals
Danny Seraphine - drums
Laudir DeOliveira - percussion
James Pankow - trombone, vocals
Lee Loughnane - trumpet, vocals
Walter Parazaider - saxophone, vocals
1980 - 1981
Robert Lamm - keyboards, vocals
Chris Pinnick - guitar
Peter Cetera - bass, vocals
Danny Seraphine - drums
Laudir DeOliveira - percussion
James Pankow - trombone, vocals
Lee Loughnane - trumpet, vocals
Walter Parazaider - saxophone, vocals
1981 - 1985
Robert Lamm - keyboards, vocals
Chris Pinnick - guitar
Peter Cetera - bass, vocals
Danny Seraphine - drums
Bill Champlin - keyboards, vocals
James Pankow - trombone, vocals
Lee Loughnane - trumpet, vocals
Walter Parazaider - saxophone, vocals
1985 - 1990
Robert Lamm - keyboards, vocals
Dawayne Bailey - guitar
Jason Scheff - bass, vocals
Danny Seraphine - drums
Bill Champlin - keyboards, vocals
James Pankow - trombone, vocals
Lee Loughnane - trumpet, vocals
Walter Parazaider - saxophone, vocals
1990 - 1995
Robert Lamm - keyboards, vocals
Dawayne Bailey - guitar
Jason Scheff - bass, vocals
Tris Imboden - drums
Bill Champlin - keyboards, vocals
James Pankow - trombone, vocals
Lee Loughnane - trumpet, vocals
Walter Parazaider - saxophone, vocals
1995 - Present
Robert Lamm - keyboards, vocals
Keith Howland - guitar, vocals
Jason Scheff - bass, vocals
Tris Imboden - drums
Bill Champlin - keyboards, vocals
James Pankow - trombone, vocals
Lee Loughnane - trumpet, vocals
Walter Parazaider - saxophone, vocals
[edit] Discography
Main article: Chicago discography
[edit] Official albums
The Chicago Transit Authority (April 1969) US #17; UK #9
Chicago (January 1970) US #4; UK #6
Chicago III (January 1971) US #2; UK #9
Chicago at Carnegie Hall (October 1971) US #3
Chicago V (July 1972) US #1; UK #24
Chicago VI (June 1973) US #1
Chicago VII (March 1974) US #1
Chicago VIII (March 1975) US #1
Chicago IX - Chicago's Greatest Hits (November 1975) US #1
Chicago X (June 1976) US #3; UK #21
Chicago XI (September 1977) US #6
Hot Streets (October 1978) US #12
Chicago 13 (August 1979) US #21
Chicago XIV (July 1980) US #71
Greatest Hits, Volume II (November 1981) US #171
Chicago 16 (June 1982) US #9; UK #44
Chicago 17 (May 1984) US #4; UK #24
Chicago 18 (September 1986) US #35
Chicago 19 (June 1988) US #37
Greatest Hits 1982-1989 (November 1989) US #37; UK #6
Twenty 1 (January 1991) US #66
Night & Day Big Band (May 1995) US #90
The Heart of Chicago 1967-1997 (April 1997) US #55; UK #21
The Heart of Chicago 1967–1998 Volume II (May 1998) US #154
Chicago XXV: The Christmas Album (August 1998) US #47
Chicago XXVI: Live in Concert (October 1999)
The Very Best of: Only the Beginning (July 2002) US #38; UK #11
The Box (July 2003)
Love Songs (January 2005) US #57
Chicago XXX (March 2006) US #41
The Best of Chicago: 40th Anniversary Edition (October 2007) US #100
Chicago XXXII: Stone of Sisyphus (June 2008) US #122
[edit] Official albums released in Quadraphonic
The Chicago Transit Authority
Chicago
Chicago III
Chicago V
Chicago VI
Chicago VII
Chicago VIII
Chicago IX - Chicago's Greatest Hits
Chicago X
[edit] Album Imports
The following albums are listed as "Imports" by Chicago in the official discography on their website:
Chicago: If You Leave Me Now
Live in Japan
Chicago: Overtime (Canadian release)
Chicago: 25 Years of Gold (Australian release)
The Very Best of Chicago (European release)
The Heart of Chicago: 1967-1981, 30th Anniversary (Japanese Release)
RED Original Release Date: April 22, 1997 Label: Warner Bros UK
1. You're The Inspiration.[1984] 2. If You Leave Me Now.[1976] 3. Make Me Smile.[1970] 4. Hard Habit To Break.[1984] 5. Saturday In The Park.[1972] 6. Wishin' You Were Here.[1974] 7. The Only One.[1997] 8. Colour My World.[1970] 9. Look Away.[1988] 10. Here In My Heart.[1997] 11. Just You 'N' Me.[1973] 12. Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? [1970] 13. Will You Still Love Me? [1986] 14. Beginnings.[1970] 15. Hard To Say I'm Sorry/Get Away.1982
The Heart of Chicago: 1982-1997, 30th Anniversary (Japanese Release)
[edit] Re-release
What's It Gonna Be, Santa? (October 2003 re-release of Chicago XXV with six additional tracks) US #102
[edit] Unofficial releases
The following compilations were released by Columbia Records after the band changed labels; they are not acknowledged by Chicago in the official discography on their website:
If You Leave Me Now (1983)
Take Me Back to Chicago (1985)
[edit] Unnumbered release
The following box set was released by Columbia Records after the band changed labels; it is officially acknowledged by Chicago but is not considered part of the numbered album chronology:
Group Portrait (1991)
[edit] Unauthorized releases
In 1969 Chicago appeared at the same rock and roll revival in Toronto that produced John Lennon's Live Peace in Toronto 1969. Since 1978 there have been innumerable unauthorized LP and CD releases of the same poor-quality recording of this performance. There were eight songs recorded at the gig, seven from The Chicago Transit Authority plus the then unreleased "25 or 6 to 4." Almost all of these releases include only seven of the songs; "Beginnings" is nearly always omitted, its title often being wrongly given to the track "Introduction." (All of these releases give at least a couple of incorrect song titles, such as "Purple Song" or "Questions 57 and 58.") "Liberation," the one song in the set not to appear on any official live album, is frequently edited or faded early. (On some versions, all the songs are faded early.)
[edit] Singles discography
Year
Song title
US Hot 100
US AC
UK
Lead singer
Album
B-Side
Label & Cat #
July 1969
"Questions 67 and 68"
center71
0-
0-
Cetera/Lamm
The Chicago Transit Authority
"Listen"
Columbia
Oct. 1969
"Beginnings"
0-
0-
0-
Lamm
The Chicago Transit Authority
"Poem 58"
Columbia 45011
March 1970
"Make Me Smile"
09
0-
0-
Kath
Chicago
Colour My World
Columbia 45127
June 1970
"25 or 6 to 4"
04
0-
07
Cetera
Chicago II
"Where Do We Go From Here"
Columbia 45194
Oct. 1970
"Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?"
07
05
0-
Lamm
The Chicago Transit Authority
"Free Country"
Columbia 45264
Feb. 1971
"Free"
020
0-
0-
Kath
Chicago III
"Free Country"
Columbia 45331
April 1971
"Lowdown"
035
0-
0-
Cetera
Chicago III
"Loneliness Is Just A Word"
Columbia 45370
June 1971
"Beginnings"/ (A-Side)
07
01
0-
Lamm
The Chicago Transit Authority
Columbia 45417
June 1971
→ "Colour My World" (B-Side)
07
0-
0-
Kath
Chicago II
Columbia 45417
Sept. 1971
"Questions 67 and 68"/ (A-Side)
024
0-
08
Cetera/Lamm
The Chicago Transit Authority
Columbia 45467
Sept. 1971
→ / "I'm a Man" (B-Side)
049
0-
0-
Kath/Cetera/Lamm
The Chicago Transit Authority
Columbia 45467
July 1972
"Saturday in the Park"
03
0-
0-
Lamm
Chicago V
"Alma Mater"
Columbia 45657
Oct. 1972
"Dialogue (Part I & II)"
024
0-
0-
Cetera/Kath
Chicago V
"Now That You're Gone"
Columbia 45717
June 1973
"Feelin' Stronger Every Day"
010
0-
0-
Cetera
Chicago VI
"Jenny"
Columbia 45880
September 1973
"Just You 'N' Me"
04
07
0-
Cetera
Chicago VI
"Critic's Choice"
Columbia 45933
Feb. 1974
"(I've Been) Searchin' So Long"
09
0-
0-
Cetera
Chicago VII
"Byblos"
Columbia 46020
June 1974
"Call on Me"
06
01
0-
Cetera
Chicago VII
"Prelude To Aire"
Columbia 46062
Oct. 1974
"Wishing You Were Here"
011
01
0-
Kath/Cetera
Chicago VII
"Life Saver"
Columbia 10049
Feb. 1975
"Harry Truman"
013
0-
0-
Lamm
Chicago VIII
"Till We Meet Again"
Columbia 10092
April 1975
"Old Days"
05
03
0-
Cetera
Chicago VIII
"Hideaway"
Columbia 10131
Aug. 1975
"Brand New Love Affair (Part I & II)"
061
0-
0-
Kath/Cetera
Chicago VIII
"Hideaway"
Columbia 10200
June 1976
"Another Rainy Day in New York City"
032
02
0-
Cetera
Chicago X
"Hope For Love"
Columbia 10360
July 1976
"If You Leave Me Now"
01
01
01
Cetera
Chicago X
"Together Again"
Columbia 10390
March 1977
"You Are On My Mind"
049
0-
0-
Pankow
Chicago X
"Gently I'll Wake You"
Columbia 10523
Sept. 1977
"Baby, What a Big Surprise"
04
0-
041
Cetera
Chicago XI
"Takin’ It On Uptown"
Columbia 10620
Jan. 1978
"Little One"
044
0-
041
Kath
Chicago XI
"Till The End Of Time"
Columbia 10683
May 1978
"Take Me Back To Chicago"
063
0-
0-
Lamm
Chicago XI
"Policeman"
Columbia 10737
Oct. 1978
"Alive Again"
014
0-
0-
Cetera/Dacus
Hot Streets
"Love Was New"
Columbia 10845
Dec. 1978
"No Tell Lover"
014
05
0-
Cetera/Dacus
Hot Streets
"Take A Chance"
Columbia 10879
March 1979
"Gone Long Gone"
073
0-
0-
Cetera
Hot Streets
"The Greatest Love On Earth"
Columbia 10935
Aug. 1979
"Must Have Been Crazy"
083
0-
0-
Dacus
Chicago 13
"Closer To You"
Columbia 11061
Oct. 1979
"Street Player"*
0-
0-
0-
Cetera
Chicago 13
"Window Dreamin'"
Columbia 11138
July 1980
"Thunder And Lightning"
056
0-
0-
Cetera/Lamm
Chicago XIV
"I’d Rather Be Rich"
Columbia 11345
Oct. 1980
"Song For You"
0
0-
0-
Cetera
Chicago XIV
"The American Dream"
Columbia 11376
May 1982
"Hard to Say I'm Sorry"
01
01
04
Cetera
Chicago 16
"Sonny Think Twice"
Full Moon/Warner 29979
Sept. 1982
"Love Me Tomorrow"
022
08
0-
Cetera
Chicago 16
"Bad Advice"
Full Moon/Warner 29911
Jan. 1983
"What You're Missing"
081
0-
0-
Cetera
Chicago 16
"Rescue You"
Full Moon/Warner 29798
April 1984
"Stay the Night"
016
0-
0-
Cetera
Chicago 17
"Only You"
Full Moon/Warner 29306
July 1984
"Hard Habit to Break"
03
03
08
Cetera/Champlin
Chicago 17
"Remember The Feeling"
Full Moon/Warner 29214
Nov. 1984
"You're the Inspiration"
03
01
014
Cetera
Chicago 17
"Once In A Lifetime"
Full Moon/Warner 29126
Feb. 1985
"Along Comes a Woman"**
014
025
096
Cetera
Chicago 17
"We Can Stop The Hurtin'"
Full Moon/Warner 29082
Aug. 1986
"25 or 6 to 4 (remix)"
048
0-
0-
Scheff
Chicago 18
"One More Day"
Full Moon/Warner 28628
Oct. 1986
"Will You Still Love Me?"
03
02
0-
Scheff/Champlin
Chicago 18
"25 Or 6 To 4"
Full Moon/Warner 28512
March 1987
"If She Would Have Been Faithful..."
017
09
0-
Scheff/Champlin
Chicago 18
"Forever"
Full Moon/Warner 28424
June 1987
"Niagara Falls"
091
0-
0-
Scheff
Chicago 18
"I Believe"
Full Moon/Warner 28283
May 1988
"I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love"
03
05
0-
Champlin
Chicago 19
"I Stand Up"
Full Moon/ Reprise 27855
Sept. 1988
"Look Away"
01
01
077
Champlin
Chicago 19
"Come In From The Night"
Full Moon/ Reprise 27766
Jan. 1989
"You're Not Alone"
010
09
0-
Champlin
Chicago 19
"It’s Alright"
Full Moon/ Reprise 27757
April 1989
"We Can Last Forever"
055
012
0-
Scheff
Chicago 19
"One More Day"
Full Moon/ Reprise 22985
Nov. 1989
"What Kind Of Man Would I Be?"
05
02
0-
Scheff
Chicago 19 / Chicago Greatest Hits 1982-1989
"25 Or 6 To 4"
Full Moon/ Reprise 22741
July 1990
"Hearts In Trouble"
075
0-
0-
Champlin
Days Of Thunder Soundtrack
"Car Building"
DGC 19679
Jan. 1991
"Chasin' the Wind"
039
013
0-
Champlin
Twenty 1
"Only Time Can Heal The Wounded"
Reprise 19466
Apr. 1991
"Explain it to My Heart"
0-
0-
0-
Scheff/Champlin
Twenty 1
"God Save The Queen"
Reprise 19449
Aug. 1991
"You Come To My Senses"
0-
011
0-
Scheff
Twenty 1
"Who Do You Love"
Reprise 19205
June 1995
"Dream a Little Dream of Me"
0-
0-
0-
Scheff/Jade
Night & Day Big Band
Giant
April 1997
"Here In My Heart"
059
01
0-
Champlin/Scheff
The Heart of Chicago 1967-1997
Reprise
Oct. 1997
"The Only One"
0
017
0-
Lamm/Champlin/Scheff
The Heart of Chicago 1967-1997
*****
Reprise
June 1998
"All Roads Lead to You"
0
013
0-
Champlin/Lamm/Scheff
The Heart of Chicago 1967–1998 Volume II
Reprise
Oct. 1998
"Show Me a Sign"
0
028
0-
Scheff/Champlin
The Heart of Chicago 1967–1998 Vol. II
Reprise
Sept. 1999
"Back to You"
0
0
0-
Scheff
Chicago XXVI: Live in Concert
Chicago Records
Feb. 2006
"Feel"***
0
019
0-
Lamm
Chicago XXX
Rhino
May 2006
"Love Will Come Back"****
0
021
0-
Scheff/Champlin
Chicago XXX
Rhino
June 2008
"Let's Take A Lifetime"
0
0
0-
Scheff
Chicago XXXII Stone of Sisyphus
Rhino * Also charted #91 on Black Singles chart.
** Also charted #10 on Mainstream Rock chart.
*** Also charted #19 on Hot AC Tracks
**** Also charted #21 on Hot AC Tracks
***** Also Lamm/Lenny Kravitz on leads.
[edit] See also
Best selling music artists (world-wide)
List of bands named after places
[edit] References
This article needs additional citations for verification.Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008)
^ Guitars 'n' Guns, 1978 Darwin Award Nominee (Confirmed True by Darwin)
[edit] External links
Official website
[hide]
v • d • eChicago
Robert Lamm · James Pankow · Lee Loughnane · Walter Parazaider · Bill Champlin · Jason Scheff · Tris Imboden · Keith HowlandTerry Kath · Peter Cetera · Danny Seraphine · Laudir DeOliveira · Donnie Dacus · Chris Pinnick · Dawayne Bailey · Bruce Gaitsch
Studio albums
The Chicago Transit Authority · Chicago · Chicago III · Chicago V · Chicago VI · Chicago VII · Chicago VIII · Chicago X · Chicago XI · Hot Streets · Chicago 13 · Chicago XIV · Chicago 16 · Chicago 17 · Chicago 18 · Chicago 19 · Twenty 1 · Night & Day Big Band · Chicago XXV: The Christmas Album · Chicago XXX · Chicago XXXII: Stone of Sisyphus
Live albums
Chicago at Carnegie Hall · Live in Japan · Chicago XXVI: Live in Concert
Compilations
Chicago IX - Chicago's Greatest Hits · Greatest Hits, Volume II · If You Leave Me Now · Take Me Back to Chicago · Greatest Hits 1982-1989 · The Heart of Chicago 1967-1997 · The Heart of Chicago 1967-1998 Volume II · The Very Best of: Only the Beginning · Love Songs · Group Portrait · The Box · The Best of Chicago: 40th Anniversary Edition
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_%28band%29"
Categories: Musical groups established in 1967 American rock music groups Jazz fusion ensembles Grammy Award winners 1960s music groups 1970s music groups 1980s music groups 1990s music groups 2000s music groups Hollywood Walk of Fame Chicago musical groups
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Chicago
Chicago's current line-up (L-R): Walter Parazaider, Lee Loughnane, James Pankow, Tris Imboden, Robert Lamm, Jason Scheff, Keith Howland, Bill Champlin
Background information
Also known as
The Big Thing, The Chicago Transit Authority
Origin
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Genre(s)
Jazz-rockRockPop rock
Years active
1967–Present
Label(s)
Columbia, Warner Bros., Rhino
Website
ChicagoTheBand.com
Members
Robert Lamm (1967–)James Pankow (1967–)Lee Loughnane (1967–)Walter Parazaider (1967–)
Bill Champlin (1981–)Jason Scheff (1985–)Tris Imboden (1990–)Keith Howland (1995–)
Former members
Terry Kath (1967–1978 accidental death)Peter Cetera (1967–1985)Danny Seraphine (1967–1990)
Laudir DeOliveira (1973–1981)Donnie Dacus (1978–1980)Chris Pinnick (1980–1985)Dawayne Bailey (1986–1994)Bruce Gaitsch (1995)
This article is about the American pop-rock-jazz band. For other uses, see Chicago (disambiguation).
Chicago is a rock band formed in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois. The band began as a politically charged, sometimes experimental, rock band and later moved to a predominately softer sound, becoming famous for producing a number of hit ballads. They had a steady stream of hits throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Second only to the Beach Boys, Chicago, in terms of singles and albums, is one of the longest running and most successful U.S. pop/rock and roll groups. [1] According to Billboard, Chicago was the leading U.S. singles charting group during the 1970s.
Biography
Beginnings
The band was formed when a group of DePaul University music students began playing a series of late-night jams at clubs on and off campus. They added more members, eventually growing to seven players, and went professional as a cover band called The Big Thing. The band featured an unusual and unusually versatile line-up of instrumentalists, including saxophonist Walter Parazaider, trombonist James Pankow, and trumpet player Lee Loughnane, along with more traditional rock instruments — guitarist Terry Kath, keyboardist Robert Lamm, drummer Danny Seraphine, and bassist Peter Cetera (who was the last to join the original group). While gaining some success as a cover band, the group worked on original songs and, in June 1968, moved to Los Angeles, California under the guidance of their friend and manager James William Guercio, and signed with Columbia Records. After the move west, The Big Thing changed their name to Chicago Transit Authority.
Their first record(released in April 1969), the eponymous The Chicago Transit Authority, was an audacious debut: a sprawling double album, virtually unheard of for a rookie band (only "Freak Out!" by the Mothers of Invention and "Loosen Up Naturally" by Sons of Champlin, featuring Bill Champlin, who would later become a member of Chicago, preceded it) that included jazzy instrumentals, extended jams featuring Latin percussion, and experimental, feedback-laden guitar abstraction. The album began to receive heavy airplay on the newly popular FM radio band; it included a number of pop-rock gems — "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?", "Beginnings", and "Questions 67 and 68" — which would later be edited to a radio-friendly length, released as singles, and eventually become rock radio staples.
Soon after the album's release, the band's name was shortened to simply Chicago, when the actual Chicago Transit Authority threatened legal action.
[edit] Chicago's heyday
The band's popularity exploded with the release of their second album, another double-LP set, which included several top-40 hits. This second album, titled Chicago (also known as Chicago II), was the group's breakthrough album. The centerpiece track was a thirteen-minute suite composed by James Pankow called "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon" (the structure of this suite was inspired by Pankow's love for classical music). The suite yielded two top ten hits, the crescendo-filled "Make Me Smile" and prom-ready ballad "Colour My World", both sung by Terry Kath. Among the other popular tracks on the album: Robert Lamm's dynamic but cryptic wah-wah-buttressed "25 or 6 to 4" (a reference to a songwriter trying to write at 25 or 26 minutes to 4 in the morning, sung by Cetera), and the lengthy war protest song "It Better End Soon." The band recorded and released music at a rate of at least one disc per year from their third album in 1971 on through the 1970s. During this period, the group's album titles invariably consisted of the band's name followed by a Roman numeral indicating the album's sequence in the group's canon, a naming pattern that lent an encyclopedic aura to the band's work. (The two exceptions to this scheme were the band's fourth album, a live boxed set entitled Chicago at Carnegie Hall and their twelfth album Hot Streets. While the live album itself did not bear a number, each of the four discs within the set was numbered Volumes I through IV.)
In 1971, Chicago released the ambitious quadruple-album live set, Chicago at Carnegie Hall Volumes I, II, III, and IV, consisting of live performances, mostly of music from their first three albums, from a week-long run at the famous venue (along with the James Gang and Led Zeppelin in 1969, one of the few rock bands to play the historic concert hall since the Beatles performed there on February 12, 1964). The performances and sound quality were judged sub-par; in fact, trombonist James Pankow went on record to say that "the horn section sounded like kazoos." The packaging of the album also contained some rather strident political messaging about how "We [youth] can change The System," including massive wall posters and voter registration information. Nevertheless, Chicago at Carnegie Hall went on to become the best-selling box set by a rock act, and held that distinction for 15 years.
The group bounced back in 1972 with their first single-disc release, Chicago V, a diverse set that reached number one on both the Billboard pop and jazz albums charts and yielded the Robert Lamm-composed-and-sung radio hit and perennial fan favorite "Saturday in the Park", which mixed everyday life and political yearning in a more subtle way. Chicago would long open their concerts with the hit song.
In 1973, the group's manager, Guercio, produced and directed Electra Glide in Blue, a movie about an Arizona motorcycle policeman. The movie starred Robert Blake, and featured Cetera, Kath, Loughnane, and Parazaider in supporting roles. The group also appeared prominently on the movie's soundtrack.
Other successful albums and singles followed in each of the succeeding years. 1973's Chicago VI topped the charts buoyed by the hits "Feelin' Stronger Every Day" and "Just You 'N' Me" and it was also the first of several albums to include Brazilian jazz percussionist Laudir DeOliveira. Chicago VII, the band's double-disc 1974 release, featured the Cetera-composed "Wishing You Were Here", sung by Terry Kath and Cetera with background vocals by Cetera and The Beach Boys and some fusion jazz. Chicago VII also provided one of the group's enduring signature tunes, the anthemic "(I've Been) Searchin' So Long," which started with as a soft ballad and culminated in a hard-rock conclusion featuring Terry Kath's electric guitar soloing against the Chicago horn section and a soaring string arrangement by Jimmie Haskell. "Happy Man," another song from Chicago VII, was also a popular favorite on FM radio, was a big hit in South America and subsequently covered by Tony Orlando and Dawn on their album To Be With You. Their 1975 release, Chicago VIII, featured the political allegory "Harry Truman" and the nostalgic Pankow-composed "Old Days". That summer also saw a very successful joint tour across America with The Beach Boys, with both acts performing seperately, then coming together for a rousing finale. The tour was considered one of the highest grossing in rock music up to that time.
Chicago gave a concert in Mèxico City in 1975 at the Auditorio Nacional which was highly appreciated by the attendants in spite of the fact that the Mexican press later reviewed it not as one of the band’s better performances, presumably for the band not being 'in the best of shape'. The tickets for the concert sold so fast that thousands of people were not able to get in, so Terry Kath asked those inside to applaud for those standing outside. Carmen Romano de Lòpez Portillo, the wife of Mèxico's then-President Josè Lòpez Portillo, is said to have been among the attendants in the first row.[citation needed]
But for all their effort, none of their singles went to number one until Chicago X in 1976, when Cetera's slow, exquisite ballad "If You Leave Me Now" climbed to the top of the charts. The song also won Chicago their only Grammy award, for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group in 1977. Ironically, the tune almost did not make the cut for the album; "If You Leave Me Now" was recorded at the very last minute. The huge success of the song would foreshadow a later reliance on ballads that would typecast the group on radio, despite the presence of mellower songs on all the previous albums. The group's 1977 release, Chicago XI, was another big success for the band; it included Cetera's hit ballad "Baby, What a Big Surprise" which became one of the group's last big hits of the decade.
[edit] Time of transition
1978 was a tragic and transitional year for Chicago. The year began with an acrimonious split with long-time manager James William Guercio(which had actually occurred three months earlier). Then, on January 23rd, guitarist/singer/songwriter/group co-founder Terry Kath died of an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound (reportedly incurred while cleaning his gun). Another version describes Kath's drunken last words to guitar tech Don Johnson: "Don't worry, guys. It isn't even loaded. See?".[1] Kath was the group's leader onstage, and for many longtime fans, its musical soul. Terry Kath's stunning death could have meant the end for Chicago, but encouraged by friends and admirers such as Doc Severinsen, the group held fast and soldiered on.
After auditioning over 30 potential replacements for Kath, Chicago decided upon guitarist/singer/songwriter Donnie Dacus, who joined the band in April 1978, just in time for the Hot Streets album and its lead-off single "Alive Again". The group was briefly re-energized by Dacus, whose long blond hair and rock star image stage presence seemingly overshadowed his musical abilities. The kinetic Dacus may have been out of character for the normally laid-back Chicago, but he could sing and play, and the band responded by delivering some of their tightest live performances ever. Hot Streets with producer Phil Ramone now at the helm, was Chicago's first album with an actual title rather than a number and was the band's first LP to have a picture of the band featured prominently on the cover, two moves that were seen by many as a way to indicate the band had changed following Kath's death. To a degree, the band returned to the old naming scheme on its subsequent releases, although most titles would now bear Arabic numerals rather than Roman numerals. The release of Hot Streets also marked a move somewhat away from the jazz-rock direction favored by Kath and towards more pop songs and ballads. Dacus didn't last long, only staying with the band through the 1979 album Chicago 13(Dacus is also featured in a promotional video on the DVD included in the Rhino Records Chicago box set from 2003). 13, again produced by Phil Ramone, was the group's first album not to contain a Top 40 hit.
1980's Chicago XIV, produced by Tom Dowd, relegated the horn section to the background on a number of tracks, and the album's two singles failed to make the Top 40. Believing the band to no longer be commercially viable, Columbia Records dropped them from its roster in 1981 and released a second "Greatest Hits" volume later that year to fulfill its contractual obligation.
The second major phase of the band's career took off in late 1981 with a new producer (David Foster), a new label (Warner Brothers), and the addition of keyboardist/guitarist/singer Bill Champlin and guitarist Chris Pinnick(who had played on XIV and subsequent tour); percussionist Laudir DeOliveira also departed at this time along with former Buckingham and sax player Marty Grebb, who had joined the group briefly for the XIV tour.
Foster brought in studio musicians for some of the tracks on Chicago 16 (including the core members of Toto), and Chicago once again topped the charts with the single "Hard to Say I'm Sorry/Get Away". This was followed up by a song that barely missed the top 20, "Love Me Tomorrow." The following album, Chicago 17, became the biggest selling album of the band's history, producing two more Top Ten singles ("You're the Inspiration" and "Hard Habit to Break") and two other singles ("Stay the Night" and "Along Comes a Woman") which charted in the top 20. Peter's brother, Kenny Cetera, was brought into the group for the 17 tour to add percussion and high harmony vocals.
Lead vocalist Peter Cetera's desire to record a second solo album (he'd done his first one in 1981) and not continue with the band's gruelling tour schedule caused him to leave Chicago in 1985. Although other band members (including Lamm and Champlin) have released solo material, Cetera has proved the most successful, topping the pop charts with The Karate Kid, Part II theme song "Glory of Love," and also with duets with Amy Grant, "The Next Time I Fall" and Cher with "After All".
[edit] The post-Cetera era
Cetera was replaced in September 1985 by bassist/singer Jason Scheff, who joined the band for the final Foster-produced album Chicago 18. This album was not as commercially successful as the previous two, but still produced the #3 single "Will You Still Love Me?", a Top 5 Adult Contemporary song ("If She Would Have Been Faithful..."), and also a high-tech and highly programmed version of "25 Or 6 To 4" with a concept video that got a lot of airplay on MTV. Soon after the album was recorded, the band hired guitarist Dawayne Bailey from Bob Seger's Silver Bullet Band. Bailey and Scheff had previously played in bands together, so Scheff introduced Bailey to the band in time for the Chicago 18 tour (Scheff and Bailey's first concert with Chicago took place on Friday Oct 17, 1986 in Rockford, Illinois).
Chicago playing in Queenstown, New Zealand.
In 1988, the band replaced producer Foster with Ron Nevison and Chas Sanford, and they topped the charts again with the Diane Warren-composed single "Look Away", from the album Chicago 19. The album also yielded three more Top 10 hits, all with Bill Champlin singing solo lead for the first time. Chicago 19 was followed in short order by Greatest Hits 1982-1989, which included the hit "What Kind Of Man Would I Be?," a slightly remixed tune originally included on 19. During 1989, Chicago did a reprise joint concert tour with The Beach Boys(and would do so once again in 1997).
The band continued in the decade of the 1990s, even though their popularity began to decline. There was also another personnel change: founding member Danny Seraphine was fired by the band in 1990 after a severe falling out with some of the others in the group and was replaced by session drummer Tris Imboden, who first appeared on the 1991 album Twenty 1. Imboden was well-known in the industry as the longtime drummer for Kenny Loggins. On a happier note, Chicago was recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on July 23, 1992.
In 1993, Chicago wrote and recorded their 22nd album, Stone of Sisyphus. Their record company at the time though, Reprise [Warner Music Group], was unhappy with the finished result, and thus the album was not released, although in succeeding years bootleg recordings of the album went on to surface worldwide, including over the internet. It is also rumored that the label would not release the album as a result of being unable to reach a licensing agreement with band management over the back catalog. Selected tracks from the unreleased album were later officially released on four international compilation greatest hits CDs and the Rhino Records 2003 box set, and four were re-recorded for band members' solo albums. One track, "The Pull", was performed live during their 1993 appearance at the Greek Theatre (taped for PBS, and released on video in 1993). The album finally did see a release in June 2008, almost 15 years after its completion.
Starting on their 1994 tour, Chicago attempted to merge their unique sound with Big Band music for the 1995 album Night & Day Big Band, which consisted of covers of songs originally recorded by artists like Sarah Vaughan, Glenn Miller, and Duke Ellington (from whom the album mainly got its inspiration). Session guitarist Bruce Gaitsch handled the guitar work, and the album featured guest appearances by Paul Shaffer of "David Letterman" fame, and Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry.
Keith Howland joined the band as guitarist in early 1995 to replace the departed Dawayne Bailey.
During a Los Angeles concert in 1997, Chicago teamed up with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra to perform a James Pankow/Dwight Mikelson orchestral arrangement of Pankow's rock epic "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon". Also during this year, the group released The Heart of Chicago 1967-1997, a compilation album which went gold and yielded the #1 Adult Contemporary hit "Here in My Heart."
In 1998, Chicago released Chicago XXV: The Christmas Album, which mixed traditional holiday favorites with an original Lee Loughnane composition. It went gold in the US. (The album was re-released with additional tracks in 2003, under the title What's It Gonna Be, Santa?) The album featured Howland's first, and to date only, lead vocal on a Chicago record.
The band released a live album in 1999, Chicago XXVI, which included only two of the many songs Cetera helped to write while in the group. In 2000, the group (minus Cetera) had the opportunity to tell their story in an episode of VH1's Behind The Music. This included gems such as Pankow relating this story from the early 1980s: "One record company said 'Man, if you get rid of the horn section, we'll sign ya... That's like tellin' Elton John to get rid of the piano." The show, however, was not without its difficulties. The episode put more emphasis on the tragic death of Terry Kath than their entire career combined. Cetera completely disowned the special and went so far as to not allow VH1 to use any of the songs he composed for the band, even declining to be interviewed (although stock footage of a Cetera interview does appear).
[edit] Chicago today
Despite the personnel changes over the years, the group still keeps active four decades after its founding. They are one of the few major rock groups that has never broken up or even taken an extended hiatus. And four of the six surviving founding members (major songwriters Lamm and Pankow, plus Loughnane and Parazaider) remain to this day providing continuity, while Bill Champlin has put in over 25 years with the band, Jason Scheff over 20, Tris Imboden over 15 and Keith Howland has logged over 13. The current lineup has been in place longer than any other in group history; 13 years and counting.
As a new century turned, the band licensed their entire recorded output to Rhino Records (after years with Columbia Records and Warner Brothers as well as their own short-lived label). In 2002, Rhino released a two-disc compilation, The Very Best of Chicago: Only The Beginning, which spans the band's entire career. Rhino has also begun releasing new versions of most of the band's albums, each including several bonus tracks; and in 2005 they released a compilation entitled Love Songs.
Chicago continues to appear in big and small venues world-wide. In 2004–2005 they toured jointly with the band Earth, Wind & Fire; a DVD recorded during that tour, Chicago/Earth, Wind & Fire - Live at the Greek Theatre, was certified platinum just two months after its release.
In 2006 the group released their first all-new studio album since Twenty 1, entitled Chicago XXX, on March 21, 2006. Two songs from this album, "Feel" and "Caroline" were performed live during Chicago's Fall 2005 tour; the studio recording of "Feel" debuted on WPLJ radio in New York in November 2005. "Feel" was the first single released from the new album. Curiously, the album contains two versions of the song; one with horns and an orchestral tag that echoes "Love Me Tomorrow," and another non-brass version. This could be seen rather strange for a band whose legacy is tied to their horn section. "Love Will Come Back" was the second single released from XXX. The album was produced by Rascal Flatts bassist Jay Demarcus, who is a friend of Chicago bassist Jason Scheff. Seven of the 12 tracks on XXX were co-written by Scheff, and the album included a large roster of guest musicians, supplanting band members in many cases.
While Chicago XXX did manage to debut at No. 41 on the US album chart besting some other weaker entries including Chicago XIV (July 1980) which hit US #71 and Twenty 1 (January 1991) which topped out at only US #66, it only remained in the top 200 for two weeks before limping off the chart.
During March 2006, Chicago made a multi-week appearance at the MGM Grand Las Vegas, which was repeated in May of the same year. In July 2006, the band made a series of US appearances with Huey Lewis & the News. Highlights of that tour included Chicago's Bill Champlin performing with Huey Lewis & the News on a couple of songs, members of Huey Lewis & the News contributing to Chicago's percussion-laden song, "I'm A Man," and Huey Lewis singing the lead vocal on Chicago's "Colour My World."
In early 2006, original drummer Danny Seraphine formed California Transit Authority, who play many of the older Chicago songs. At the end of 2006, the band played at CD USA's New Year's Eve party on Fremont Street in Las Vegas. Chicago toured the summer of 2007 with the band America. On October 2, 2007, Rhino Records released the two-disc The Best of Chicago: 40th Anniversary Edition, yet another greatest hits compilation spanning their entire forty years, similar to The Very Best of: Only the Beginning released just four years earlier.
June 17, 2008, finally saw the official release of the dynamic Stone of Sisyphus album by Rhino Records, recorded in 1993 and which had been originally slated for a March 1994 release until being shelved by Warner Records. The album contains eleven of the original twelve tracks (the raucous "Get on This" was left off), plus four demo recordings. Its official title is "Chicago XXXII: Stone of Sisyphus" (it was originally slated to be album #22). A remixed version of "Let's Take a Lifetime", with a newly recorded bridge and additional saxophones, is the first single released to AC radio.
[edit] Membership
Chicago Band Members (By Year)
1967 - 1975
Robert Lamm - keyboards, vocals
Terry Kath - guitar, vocals
Peter Cetera - bass, vocals
Danny Seraphine - drums
James Pankow - trombone, vocals
Lee Loughnane - trumpet, vocals
Walter Parazaider - saxophone, vocals
1975 - 1978
Robert Lamm - keyboards, vocals
Terry Kath - guitar, vocals
Peter Cetera - bass, vocals
Danny Seraphine - drums
Laudir DeOliveira - percussion
James Pankow - trombone, vocals
Lee Loughnane - trumpet, vocals
Walter Parazaider - saxophone, vocals
1978 - 1980
Robert Lamm - keyboards, vocals
Donnie Dacus - guitar, vocals
Peter Cetera - bass, vocals
Danny Seraphine - drums
Laudir DeOliveira - percussion
James Pankow - trombone, vocals
Lee Loughnane - trumpet, vocals
Walter Parazaider - saxophone, vocals
1980 - 1981
Robert Lamm - keyboards, vocals
Chris Pinnick - guitar
Peter Cetera - bass, vocals
Danny Seraphine - drums
Laudir DeOliveira - percussion
James Pankow - trombone, vocals
Lee Loughnane - trumpet, vocals
Walter Parazaider - saxophone, vocals
1981 - 1985
Robert Lamm - keyboards, vocals
Chris Pinnick - guitar
Peter Cetera - bass, vocals
Danny Seraphine - drums
Bill Champlin - keyboards, vocals
James Pankow - trombone, vocals
Lee Loughnane - trumpet, vocals
Walter Parazaider - saxophone, vocals
1985 - 1990
Robert Lamm - keyboards, vocals
Dawayne Bailey - guitar
Jason Scheff - bass, vocals
Danny Seraphine - drums
Bill Champlin - keyboards, vocals
James Pankow - trombone, vocals
Lee Loughnane - trumpet, vocals
Walter Parazaider - saxophone, vocals
1990 - 1995
Robert Lamm - keyboards, vocals
Dawayne Bailey - guitar
Jason Scheff - bass, vocals
Tris Imboden - drums
Bill Champlin - keyboards, vocals
James Pankow - trombone, vocals
Lee Loughnane - trumpet, vocals
Walter Parazaider - saxophone, vocals
1995 - Present
Robert Lamm - keyboards, vocals
Keith Howland - guitar, vocals
Jason Scheff - bass, vocals
Tris Imboden - drums
Bill Champlin - keyboards, vocals
James Pankow - trombone, vocals
Lee Loughnane - trumpet, vocals
Walter Parazaider - saxophone, vocals
[edit] Discography
Main article: Chicago discography
[edit] Official albums
The Chicago Transit Authority (April 1969) US #17; UK #9
Chicago (January 1970) US #4; UK #6
Chicago III (January 1971) US #2; UK #9
Chicago at Carnegie Hall (October 1971) US #3
Chicago V (July 1972) US #1; UK #24
Chicago VI (June 1973) US #1
Chicago VII (March 1974) US #1
Chicago VIII (March 1975) US #1
Chicago IX - Chicago's Greatest Hits (November 1975) US #1
Chicago X (June 1976) US #3; UK #21
Chicago XI (September 1977) US #6
Hot Streets (October 1978) US #12
Chicago 13 (August 1979) US #21
Chicago XIV (July 1980) US #71
Greatest Hits, Volume II (November 1981) US #171
Chicago 16 (June 1982) US #9; UK #44
Chicago 17 (May 1984) US #4; UK #24
Chicago 18 (September 1986) US #35
Chicago 19 (June 1988) US #37
Greatest Hits 1982-1989 (November 1989) US #37; UK #6
Twenty 1 (January 1991) US #66
Night & Day Big Band (May 1995) US #90
The Heart of Chicago 1967-1997 (April 1997) US #55; UK #21
The Heart of Chicago 1967–1998 Volume II (May 1998) US #154
Chicago XXV: The Christmas Album (August 1998) US #47
Chicago XXVI: Live in Concert (October 1999)
The Very Best of: Only the Beginning (July 2002) US #38; UK #11
The Box (July 2003)
Love Songs (January 2005) US #57
Chicago XXX (March 2006) US #41
The Best of Chicago: 40th Anniversary Edition (October 2007) US #100
Chicago XXXII: Stone of Sisyphus (June 2008) US #122
[edit] Official albums released in Quadraphonic
The Chicago Transit Authority
Chicago
Chicago III
Chicago V
Chicago VI
Chicago VII
Chicago VIII
Chicago IX - Chicago's Greatest Hits
Chicago X
[edit] Album Imports
The following albums are listed as "Imports" by Chicago in the official discography on their website:
Chicago: If You Leave Me Now
Live in Japan
Chicago: Overtime (Canadian release)
Chicago: 25 Years of Gold (Australian release)
The Very Best of Chicago (European release)
The Heart of Chicago: 1967-1981, 30th Anniversary (Japanese Release)
RED Original Release Date: April 22, 1997 Label: Warner Bros UK
1. You're The Inspiration.[1984] 2. If You Leave Me Now.[1976] 3. Make Me Smile.[1970] 4. Hard Habit To Break.[1984] 5. Saturday In The Park.[1972] 6. Wishin' You Were Here.[1974] 7. The Only One.[1997] 8. Colour My World.[1970] 9. Look Away.[1988] 10. Here In My Heart.[1997] 11. Just You 'N' Me.[1973] 12. Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? [1970] 13. Will You Still Love Me? [1986] 14. Beginnings.[1970] 15. Hard To Say I'm Sorry/Get Away.1982
The Heart of Chicago: 1982-1997, 30th Anniversary (Japanese Release)
[edit] Re-release
What's It Gonna Be, Santa? (October 2003 re-release of Chicago XXV with six additional tracks) US #102
[edit] Unofficial releases
The following compilations were released by Columbia Records after the band changed labels; they are not acknowledged by Chicago in the official discography on their website:
If You Leave Me Now (1983)
Take Me Back to Chicago (1985)
[edit] Unnumbered release
The following box set was released by Columbia Records after the band changed labels; it is officially acknowledged by Chicago but is not considered part of the numbered album chronology:
Group Portrait (1991)
[edit] Unauthorized releases
In 1969 Chicago appeared at the same rock and roll revival in Toronto that produced John Lennon's Live Peace in Toronto 1969. Since 1978 there have been innumerable unauthorized LP and CD releases of the same poor-quality recording of this performance. There were eight songs recorded at the gig, seven from The Chicago Transit Authority plus the then unreleased "25 or 6 to 4." Almost all of these releases include only seven of the songs; "Beginnings" is nearly always omitted, its title often being wrongly given to the track "Introduction." (All of these releases give at least a couple of incorrect song titles, such as "Purple Song" or "Questions 57 and 58.") "Liberation," the one song in the set not to appear on any official live album, is frequently edited or faded early. (On some versions, all the songs are faded early.)
[edit] Singles discography
Year
Song title
US Hot 100
US AC
UK
Lead singer
Album
B-Side
Label & Cat #
July 1969
"Questions 67 and 68"
center71
0-
0-
Cetera/Lamm
The Chicago Transit Authority
"Listen"
Columbia
Oct. 1969
"Beginnings"
0-
0-
0-
Lamm
The Chicago Transit Authority
"Poem 58"
Columbia 45011
March 1970
"Make Me Smile"
09
0-
0-
Kath
Chicago
Colour My World
Columbia 45127
June 1970
"25 or 6 to 4"
04
0-
07
Cetera
Chicago II
"Where Do We Go From Here"
Columbia 45194
Oct. 1970
"Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?"
07
05
0-
Lamm
The Chicago Transit Authority
"Free Country"
Columbia 45264
Feb. 1971
"Free"
020
0-
0-
Kath
Chicago III
"Free Country"
Columbia 45331
April 1971
"Lowdown"
035
0-
0-
Cetera
Chicago III
"Loneliness Is Just A Word"
Columbia 45370
June 1971
"Beginnings"/ (A-Side)
07
01
0-
Lamm
The Chicago Transit Authority
Columbia 45417
June 1971
→ "Colour My World" (B-Side)
07
0-
0-
Kath
Chicago II
Columbia 45417
Sept. 1971
"Questions 67 and 68"/ (A-Side)
024
0-
08
Cetera/Lamm
The Chicago Transit Authority
Columbia 45467
Sept. 1971
→ / "I'm a Man" (B-Side)
049
0-
0-
Kath/Cetera/Lamm
The Chicago Transit Authority
Columbia 45467
July 1972
"Saturday in the Park"
03
0-
0-
Lamm
Chicago V
"Alma Mater"
Columbia 45657
Oct. 1972
"Dialogue (Part I & II)"
024
0-
0-
Cetera/Kath
Chicago V
"Now That You're Gone"
Columbia 45717
June 1973
"Feelin' Stronger Every Day"
010
0-
0-
Cetera
Chicago VI
"Jenny"
Columbia 45880
September 1973
"Just You 'N' Me"
04
07
0-
Cetera
Chicago VI
"Critic's Choice"
Columbia 45933
Feb. 1974
"(I've Been) Searchin' So Long"
09
0-
0-
Cetera
Chicago VII
"Byblos"
Columbia 46020
June 1974
"Call on Me"
06
01
0-
Cetera
Chicago VII
"Prelude To Aire"
Columbia 46062
Oct. 1974
"Wishing You Were Here"
011
01
0-
Kath/Cetera
Chicago VII
"Life Saver"
Columbia 10049
Feb. 1975
"Harry Truman"
013
0-
0-
Lamm
Chicago VIII
"Till We Meet Again"
Columbia 10092
April 1975
"Old Days"
05
03
0-
Cetera
Chicago VIII
"Hideaway"
Columbia 10131
Aug. 1975
"Brand New Love Affair (Part I & II)"
061
0-
0-
Kath/Cetera
Chicago VIII
"Hideaway"
Columbia 10200
June 1976
"Another Rainy Day in New York City"
032
02
0-
Cetera
Chicago X
"Hope For Love"
Columbia 10360
July 1976
"If You Leave Me Now"
01
01
01
Cetera
Chicago X
"Together Again"
Columbia 10390
March 1977
"You Are On My Mind"
049
0-
0-
Pankow
Chicago X
"Gently I'll Wake You"
Columbia 10523
Sept. 1977
"Baby, What a Big Surprise"
04
0-
041
Cetera
Chicago XI
"Takin’ It On Uptown"
Columbia 10620
Jan. 1978
"Little One"
044
0-
041
Kath
Chicago XI
"Till The End Of Time"
Columbia 10683
May 1978
"Take Me Back To Chicago"
063
0-
0-
Lamm
Chicago XI
"Policeman"
Columbia 10737
Oct. 1978
"Alive Again"
014
0-
0-
Cetera/Dacus
Hot Streets
"Love Was New"
Columbia 10845
Dec. 1978
"No Tell Lover"
014
05
0-
Cetera/Dacus
Hot Streets
"Take A Chance"
Columbia 10879
March 1979
"Gone Long Gone"
073
0-
0-
Cetera
Hot Streets
"The Greatest Love On Earth"
Columbia 10935
Aug. 1979
"Must Have Been Crazy"
083
0-
0-
Dacus
Chicago 13
"Closer To You"
Columbia 11061
Oct. 1979
"Street Player"*
0-
0-
0-
Cetera
Chicago 13
"Window Dreamin'"
Columbia 11138
July 1980
"Thunder And Lightning"
056
0-
0-
Cetera/Lamm
Chicago XIV
"I’d Rather Be Rich"
Columbia 11345
Oct. 1980
"Song For You"
0
0-
0-
Cetera
Chicago XIV
"The American Dream"
Columbia 11376
May 1982
"Hard to Say I'm Sorry"
01
01
04
Cetera
Chicago 16
"Sonny Think Twice"
Full Moon/Warner 29979
Sept. 1982
"Love Me Tomorrow"
022
08
0-
Cetera
Chicago 16
"Bad Advice"
Full Moon/Warner 29911
Jan. 1983
"What You're Missing"
081
0-
0-
Cetera
Chicago 16
"Rescue You"
Full Moon/Warner 29798
April 1984
"Stay the Night"
016
0-
0-
Cetera
Chicago 17
"Only You"
Full Moon/Warner 29306
July 1984
"Hard Habit to Break"
03
03
08
Cetera/Champlin
Chicago 17
"Remember The Feeling"
Full Moon/Warner 29214
Nov. 1984
"You're the Inspiration"
03
01
014
Cetera
Chicago 17
"Once In A Lifetime"
Full Moon/Warner 29126
Feb. 1985
"Along Comes a Woman"**
014
025
096
Cetera
Chicago 17
"We Can Stop The Hurtin'"
Full Moon/Warner 29082
Aug. 1986
"25 or 6 to 4 (remix)"
048
0-
0-
Scheff
Chicago 18
"One More Day"
Full Moon/Warner 28628
Oct. 1986
"Will You Still Love Me?"
03
02
0-
Scheff/Champlin
Chicago 18
"25 Or 6 To 4"
Full Moon/Warner 28512
March 1987
"If She Would Have Been Faithful..."
017
09
0-
Scheff/Champlin
Chicago 18
"Forever"
Full Moon/Warner 28424
June 1987
"Niagara Falls"
091
0-
0-
Scheff
Chicago 18
"I Believe"
Full Moon/Warner 28283
May 1988
"I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love"
03
05
0-
Champlin
Chicago 19
"I Stand Up"
Full Moon/ Reprise 27855
Sept. 1988
"Look Away"
01
01
077
Champlin
Chicago 19
"Come In From The Night"
Full Moon/ Reprise 27766
Jan. 1989
"You're Not Alone"
010
09
0-
Champlin
Chicago 19
"It’s Alright"
Full Moon/ Reprise 27757
April 1989
"We Can Last Forever"
055
012
0-
Scheff
Chicago 19
"One More Day"
Full Moon/ Reprise 22985
Nov. 1989
"What Kind Of Man Would I Be?"
05
02
0-
Scheff
Chicago 19 / Chicago Greatest Hits 1982-1989
"25 Or 6 To 4"
Full Moon/ Reprise 22741
July 1990
"Hearts In Trouble"
075
0-
0-
Champlin
Days Of Thunder Soundtrack
"Car Building"
DGC 19679
Jan. 1991
"Chasin' the Wind"
039
013
0-
Champlin
Twenty 1
"Only Time Can Heal The Wounded"
Reprise 19466
Apr. 1991
"Explain it to My Heart"
0-
0-
0-
Scheff/Champlin
Twenty 1
"God Save The Queen"
Reprise 19449
Aug. 1991
"You Come To My Senses"
0-
011
0-
Scheff
Twenty 1
"Who Do You Love"
Reprise 19205
June 1995
"Dream a Little Dream of Me"
0-
0-
0-
Scheff/Jade
Night & Day Big Band
Giant
April 1997
"Here In My Heart"
059
01
0-
Champlin/Scheff
The Heart of Chicago 1967-1997
Reprise
Oct. 1997
"The Only One"
0
017
0-
Lamm/Champlin/Scheff
The Heart of Chicago 1967-1997
*****
Reprise
June 1998
"All Roads Lead to You"
0
013
0-
Champlin/Lamm/Scheff
The Heart of Chicago 1967–1998 Volume II
Reprise
Oct. 1998
"Show Me a Sign"
0
028
0-
Scheff/Champlin
The Heart of Chicago 1967–1998 Vol. II
Reprise
Sept. 1999
"Back to You"
0
0
0-
Scheff
Chicago XXVI: Live in Concert
Chicago Records
Feb. 2006
"Feel"***
0
019
0-
Lamm
Chicago XXX
Rhino
May 2006
"Love Will Come Back"****
0
021
0-
Scheff/Champlin
Chicago XXX
Rhino
June 2008
"Let's Take A Lifetime"
0
0
0-
Scheff
Chicago XXXII Stone of Sisyphus
Rhino * Also charted #91 on Black Singles chart.
** Also charted #10 on Mainstream Rock chart.
*** Also charted #19 on Hot AC Tracks
**** Also charted #21 on Hot AC Tracks
***** Also Lamm/Lenny Kravitz on leads.
[edit] See also
Best selling music artists (world-wide)
List of bands named after places
[edit] References
This article needs additional citations for verification.Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008)
^ Guitars 'n' Guns, 1978 Darwin Award Nominee (Confirmed True by Darwin)
[edit] External links
Official website
[hide]
v • d • eChicago
Robert Lamm · James Pankow · Lee Loughnane · Walter Parazaider · Bill Champlin · Jason Scheff · Tris Imboden · Keith HowlandTerry Kath · Peter Cetera · Danny Seraphine · Laudir DeOliveira · Donnie Dacus · Chris Pinnick · Dawayne Bailey · Bruce Gaitsch
Studio albums
The Chicago Transit Authority · Chicago · Chicago III · Chicago V · Chicago VI · Chicago VII · Chicago VIII · Chicago X · Chicago XI · Hot Streets · Chicago 13 · Chicago XIV · Chicago 16 · Chicago 17 · Chicago 18 · Chicago 19 · Twenty 1 · Night & Day Big Band · Chicago XXV: The Christmas Album · Chicago XXX · Chicago XXXII: Stone of Sisyphus
Live albums
Chicago at Carnegie Hall · Live in Japan · Chicago XXVI: Live in Concert
Compilations
Chicago IX - Chicago's Greatest Hits · Greatest Hits, Volume II · If You Leave Me Now · Take Me Back to Chicago · Greatest Hits 1982-1989 · The Heart of Chicago 1967-1997 · The Heart of Chicago 1967-1998 Volume II · The Very Best of: Only the Beginning · Love Songs · Group Portrait · The Box · The Best of Chicago: 40th Anniversary Edition
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_%28band%29"
Categories: Musical groups established in 1967 American rock music groups Jazz fusion ensembles Grammy Award winners 1960s music groups 1970s music groups 1980s music groups 1990s music groups 2000s music groups Hollywood Walk of Fame Chicago musical groups
Hidden categories: Cleanup from April 2008 All pages needing cleanup All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements since May 2007 Articles needing additional references from February 2008
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