Create
Chicago at 58: It’s the music that matters
It turns out that whoever made the decision to use the same cursive logo as the cover of every Chicago album, with no photos of the band members, was a marketing genius.
That was 1969, and the first album was Chicago Transit Authority (the name would soon be permanently shortened), and with one or two exceptions, the next 40 long-players would feature just that logo, in a multitude of clever designs. Most, but not all, had sequential numbers as titles.
Chicago notched 23 gold, 18 platinum and eight multi-platinum albums (five of these went to No. 1) and 21 of the band’s singles reached the Top Ten. One of the best-selling rock acts of all time, Chicago brought beefy horn charts, complex arrangements and overt jazz touches to rock ‘n’ roll.
Because of that ubiquitous logo, only the band’s most dedicated fans knew what the musicians looked like.
Chicago is approaching its 59th year of existence – let that sink in a moment – and although music sales aren’t what they used to be, the band is still touring and selling out large venues.
The logo and the legacy are one.
They’re playing Clearwater’s 9,000-seat BayCare Sound amphitheater Friday. After a multitude of lineup shifts, the current incarnation of the seven-member band includes just three of the founding players.
Two of them wrote the lion’s share of Chicago’s biggest hits: Pianist Robert Lamm (“Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is,” “Saturday in the Park,” “25 or 6 to 4”) and non-singing trombone player James Pankow (“Colour My World,” “Just You N’ Me,” “I’ve Been Searching So Long”).
Trumpeter Lee Loughnane, the third veteran Chicagoan, says it’s always been about the music anyway, not the personnel or the album titles. Keeping a machine this big humming for decades has not been without bumps, bruises and hard feelings.
“Everything had its moment, and the shows still went well no matter what was going on personality-wise between the members,” Loughnane said.
It’s still a thrill, every night, added the 78-year-old. “When you initially write a song, you’re hoping that anybody else, besides yourself, will like it. And so to have all of these songs that we’re able to play on a nightly basis resonate with different generations of people, it’s not something you can prepare for. Or think it will actually happen to you.”
Although 10- and 12-hour bus rides between gigs can take it out of a guy, Loughnane said, it’s been his way of life since he was in his 20s.
“I like doing this,” he explained. “When I play my trumpet, whether I’m practicing or waking up my chops in the morning, it changes my psyche. It really does. When I don’t play my instrument, I don’t feel as good on a mental basis. It really does help me mentally, physically and emotionally. And music has always done that for me. There’s no reason for me to stop. Especially at the level that the band is playing.”
These days, Canadian vocalist Neil Donell sings the high tenor parts made famous, so long ago, by ex-member Peter Cetera: “25 or 6 to 4,” “Feelin’ Stronger Every Day,” “If You Leave Me Now” and others. There are 11 players in the current band.
Founding saxophone and flute player Walt Parazaider retired, for health reasons, in 2017.
As for Loughnane, “I think if we somehow disbanded, and people stop buying tickets, I’d still play music,” he said. “And that’s always been the case. But to have something as successful as this, with the legacy that we have built, there’s no reason at all to stop doing it. You know, retire to what?”
The most recent Chicago album is an archival life recording, from the Kennedy Center in 1971. There are Pankow, Parazaider, Loughnane, Lamm, Cetera, guitarist Terry Kath and drummer Danny Seraphine, playing their hearts out (it was, incidentally, the very first live performance of “Saturday in the Park”).
Listening to the 54-year-old tapes, Loughnane admitted, got him momentarily misty.
“What I found was, we had that youth exuberance,” he said. “Just crazy kids running around the world, and enjoying the music. That has never stopped, from the first day we got together, that we enjoy playing music together. And we didn’t think, at that time, that the members would change at all.
“We were thinking of it sort of like the Beatles. If one of the Beatles left, it wouldn’t be the Beatles any more.”
Chicago in the 1970s. Photo: Columbia Records.
