Self-described as a "rock and roll band with horns,", Chicago has been creating their unique and dazzling blend of jazz, soul and pop-rock music for almost sixty years. Formed in 1967 from several Chicago area bands whose members decided to join forces and play together. The original line-up was Peter Cetera on bass, Terry Kath on guitar, Robert Lamm on keyboards, Lee Loughnane on trumpet, James Pankow on trombone, Walter Parazaider on woodwinds, and Danny Seraphine on drums with Cetera, Kath and Lamm sharing lead vocals. First working as a local cover band called The Big Thing, the group began creating original material which was well received when they performed them.
After getting signed to Columbia Records in 1968, they changed their name to the Chicago Transit Authority. Their self-titled debut was released the following year and was a double album which was highly unusual for a band's very first record. But that showed how much faith the label had for Chicago Transit Authority and they were proven to be right. The album would go on to sell over a million copies by 1970 on the strength of the hit singles, "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?", "Beginnings", "Questions 67 and 68", and "I'm a Man". Following this rapid success, the band dropped "Transit Authority" from their name to avoid any potential legal action from the actual transit company.
Chicago quickly went back into the studio for their next album, "Chicago II" that became another big hit in 1970 that featured the top ten songs, "Make Me Smile", "Colour My World" and "25 or 6 to 4". "Chicago III" was out the next year and became another gold album. The rest of Chicago's subsequent six albums were Roman-numeral titled and would include plenty more popular hit singles: "Saturday in the Park", "Just You 'n' Me", "Feelin' Stronger Every Day", "(I've Been) Searchin' So Long", "Wishing You Were Here", "Old Days" and "If You Leave Me Now" which became the group's first number one US pop single in 1976 and won Chicago their only Grammy Award to date. With the 1977 release, "Chicago XI", "Baby, What a Big Surprise" was a number four U.S. hit that would become the group's last top 10 hit of the decade.
Tragedy would strike the group when on January 23, 1978, Kath died from a freak accident: a self-inflicted gunshot wound from a gun he thought was unloaded. The band was unsure they would be able to continue as they also were beginning to have serious concerns about their long-time producer, James William Guercio who they began to suspect had been cheating the band financially.
Chicago decided to continue on as a band, hiring guitarist and singer-songwriter Donnie Dacus to replace Kath and Phil Ramone to co-produce with the band on their tenth studio album, "Hot Streets" which was their first without a numbered title. The singles, "Alive Again" and "No Tell Lover" became top-twenty hits and proved Chicago was still able to achieve success despite the changes. However their next album, "Chicago 13" in 1979 was not nearly as successful and Dacus would leave the band at the end of the tour supporting the record. By 1980, the band released "Chicago XIV" with a new producer, Tom Dowd. With a radical change in sound, this album was a critical and financial failure with Columbia, no longer feeling the band was commercially viable, dropping the band from the label.
Two years later, Chicago signed with Warner Bros. Records, added keyboardist, guitarist, and singer Bill Champlin and brought in a new producer, David Foster to work on "Chicago 16". The ballad from the album, "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" (written by Foster and Cetera) became the band's second number one US pop single. More hits with Cetera on lead vocals followed with "You're the Inspiration" and "Hard Habit to Break", and soon he was requesting an opportunity to go off as a solo performer while remaining with Chicago. The band declined this offer and in 1985, Cetera would leave Chicago, enjoying a solid career with several of his own top ten hits.
Chicago has continued on as a group ever since, largely as a touring band with a constant change of backing members over the years. But they have also still been recording with twenty-six career studio albums to date and their most recent, "Chicago XXXVIII: Born for This Moment" released in 2022 with Lamm, Loughnane and Pankow still performing with the band they helped form. Chicago was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016 and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. It was extremely difficult to narrow down to just two songs by Chicago but I managed to select a couple of my all-time favorites:
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