Several young musicians living in Chicago in the 1960's had a dream. They wanted to blend jazz and blues musical styles with rock and roll. They combined their horn playing talents to form the band Chicago Transit Authority in 1967. Chicago's official website tracks the legacy of the band from the early beginnings to the currents status of the band.
The History of the Band Chicago
Seven musicians, Walter Parazaider, Terry Kath, Danny Seraphine, Lee Loughnane, James Pankow, Robert Lamm, and Peter Cetera, created a band in the late 60's that would go on to garner 47 gold and platinum albums. Parazaider, a clarinet and saxophone player at the time, conceived the idea of a rock and roll band with horns.
This was a novel approach as rock bands during this time tended to follow the Beatles' tradition of guitar, bass and drums for their musical sounds. Parazaider teamed up with Kath, a bass player, drummer Seraphine, and horn player, Loughnane, at DePaul University. Parazaider then approached James Pankow, a sophomore trombone player, also at DePaul. The forming band now had three horn players, but they needed someone to play keyboards. They found Robert Lamm, who was then known as "Bobby Charles" of Bobby Charles and the Wanderers. The group began to practice together and called themselves, The Big Thing.
A few months later, a bass player from a band called Exceptions, heard The Big Thing play. He asked if he could be part of the group as he loved the sound with the horns. Bassist Peter Cetera left Exceptions and signed on with Walter Parazaider and company.
CBS Music producer Jimmy Guercio had met Parazaider at DePaul University years earlier. After hearing the band play a gig in Chicago, he signed on as their producer and moved them to Los Angeles, It was Guercio who renamed them the group Chicago Transit Authority, in honor of the bus line he used to ride to school.
Albums and Songs by Rock Band Chicago
Chicago Transit Authority released their first album, titled Chicago Transit Authority, in April 1969. It become an instant hit with college students and the songs were played regularly on FM rock stations. The album spent 148 weeks on the Billboard Music chart (and that wasn't the end of its total run), making it the longest running album by a rock group up to that time. As the group prepared for its first international tour, they shortened the name of the group to Chicago, pending a threatened lawsuit from the Chicago Transit Authority.
Their second album, titled Chicago, soon became known as Chicago II. This established the naming pattern for the group, with each successive album featuring the Chicago logo, followed by the next Roman numeral. There are two exceptions, with the fourth album titled Chicago at Carnegie Hall and their twelfth album, Hot Streets (although many fans and band members refer to these albums as Chicago IV and XII, respectively).
It was Chicago's second album that gave the band their first single hits with "Colour my World" and "25 or 6 to 4". The group continued churning out hit albums and singles over the next decade. The Associated Press on January 24, 1978 broke the news that Terry Kath had died from an accidental gun shot wound. The tragic news left the group adrift for several months as they grappled with their grief. They went from the high of their latest album, Chicago XI, hitting platinum a month after its release, to the low point of talk about disbanding. Instead, they decided to find a new guitarist and work on a new album. The only album to have a picture of the band members on the cover, Hot Streets, was released to honor Kath.
Today, Chicago has sold 120,000,000 albums worldwide. The group has toured for 40 consecutive years. Their current touring schedule has them at solo events, as well as joint appearances with the Doobie Brothers. Despite their decades of international fame, Chicago has not been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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