Chicago

A rock band with horns

Chicago began on 15 February 1967, when six Chicago musicians met in Walter Parazaider's apartment: Parazaider on woodwinds, Terry Kath on guitar, Danny Seraphine on drums, James Pankow on trombone, Lee Loughnane on trumpet and Robert Lamm on keyboards. Parazaider's plan was a rock and roll band with horns, at a time when most groups kept to guitars, bass and drums. They called themselves the Big Thing, rehearsed in his parents' basement and played soul covers by James Brown and Wilson Pickett. Peter Cetera, bass player with a club band, the Exceptions, had come early to see them at Barnaby's in December 1967, and at the end of the two-week booking he left his own band to join.

Jimmy Guercio, an old friend of Parazaider who produced for CBS Records, had heard the band at a week of shows in Niles, Michigan. In June 1968 he moved them to Los Angeles and renamed them Chicago Transit Authority, after the bus line he had ridden to school. CBS's West Coast executives turned them down twice before the label's president, Clive Davis, reversed the decision and signed them.

Double albums

Chicago Transit Authority was made in New York in January 1969, with five days allowed for basic tracking and five for overdubs. The band wanted a double album, and Columbia agreed only if they took a royalty cut. Released on 28 April 1969, it reached number 17 and stayed on the Billboard chart for a then-record 171 weeks. The singles came later: Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? and Beginnings each reached number 7, and Questions 67 and 68 climbed to number 24 on its 1971 re-release. The group was nominated for the 1970 Grammy for Best New Artist, which went to Crosby, Stills and Nash. After the real transit authority threatened legal action, the name was cut to Chicago.

Chicago II followed in January 1970, another double album, and reached number 4 with a top-ten single in 25 or 6 to 4. Chicago III reached number 2 in 1971, and that year the four-LP Chicago at Carnegie Hall documented a week at the hall, the first by a rock act to sell out. Chicago V (1972) was their first single-disc release and went to number 1, led by Saturday in the Park.

Ballads

Chicago X (1976) brought the band's first number one single, Peter Cetera's If You Leave Me Now, and their first Grammy win. Terry Kath died on 23 January 1978, the same year the band split with Guercio. Donnie Dacus joined in April and they made Hot Streets with producer Phil Ramone. Columbia dropped the group in 1981, and with a new label, Warner Bros., and producer David Foster, the horn-based sound gave way to ballads. Hard to Say I'm Sorry reached number 1 from Chicago 16 in 1982, and Chicago 17 (1984) became their best-selling album. Cetera left in the summer of 1985 and Jason Scheff took his place. Look Away, from Chicago 19, was the last of their three number one singles.

Since 1990

Seraphine left in 1990 and Tris Imboden became the drummer. Stone of Sisyphus, recorded in 1993, was rejected by Reprise and reached listeners only in 2008, when Rhino released it. The band licensed its recordings to Rhino in 2002, and Rhino began reissuing the Columbia albums. Chicago Transit Authority entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2014, and the original seven members went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 8 April 2016, with Seraphine rejoining the band for the ceremony and Cetera choosing not to attend. They received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020, and in 2025 the Library of Congress picked the debut for the National Recording Registry. Lamm, Pankow and Loughnane remain the band's partners, and Chicago XXXVIII: Born for This Moment appeared in July 2022.