Chicago (band)

Chicago is an American rock band formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1967. Self-described as a "rock and roll band with horns," their songs often also combine elements of classical music, jazz, R&B, and pop music.

Growing out of several bands from the Chicago area in the late 1960s, the original line-up consisted of 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. Cetera, Kath, and Lamm shared lead vocal duties. The group initially called themselves the Big Thing, then changed to the Chicago Transit Authority in 1968, and finally shortened the name to Chicago in 1969.

Laudir de Oliveira joined the band as a percussionist and second drummer in 1974. Kath died in 1978 and was replaced by several guitarists in succession. Bill Champlin joined in 1981, providing vocals, keyboards, and rhythm guitar. Cetera left the band in 1985 and was replaced by Jason Scheff. Seraphine left in 1990 and was replaced by Tris Imboden. Although the band's lineup has been more fluid since 2009, Lamm, Loughnane, and Pankow have remained constant members. Parazaider "officially retired" in 2017, but is still a band member. In 2021, he revealed he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

In September 2008, Billboard ranked Chicago at number thirteen in a list of the top 100 artists of all time for Hot 100 singles chart success, and ranked them at number fifteen on that same list in October 2015. Billboard also ranked Chicago ninth on the list of the 100 greatest artists of all time in terms of Billboard 200 album chart success in October 2015. Chicago is one of the longest-running and most successful rock groups, and one of the world's best-selling groups of all time, having sold more than 100 million records. In 1971, Chicago was the first rock act to sell out Carnegie Hall for a week. Chicago is also considered a pioneer in rock music marketing, featuring a recognizable logo on album covers, and sequentially naming their albums using Roman numerals.

In terms of chart success, Chicago is one of the most successful American bands in Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Billboard history (second only to the Beach Boys), and are one of the most successful popular music acts of all time. To date, Chicago has sold over 40 million units in the U.S., with 23 gold, 18 platinum, and eight multi-platinum albums. They had five consecutive number-one albums on the Billboard 200, 20 top-ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100, and in 1974 the group had seven albums, its entire catalog at the time, on the Billboard 200 simultaneously. The group has received ten Grammy Award nominations, winning one for the song "If You Leave Me Now". The group's first album, Chicago Transit Authority, released in 1969, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2014. The original line-up of Chicago was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016. In 2017, Cetera, Lamm, and Pankow were elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Chicago received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award on October 16, 2020.

The group now known as Chicago began on February 15, 1967, at a meeting involving saxophonist Walter Parazaider, guitarist Terry Kath, drummer Danny Seraphine, trombonist James Pankow, trumpet player Lee Loughnane, and keyboardist/singer Robert Lamm. Kath, Parazaider, and Seraphine had played together previously in two other groups—Jimmy Ford and the Executives, and the Missing Links. Parazaider had met Pankow and Loughnane when they were all students at DePaul University. Lamm, a student at Roosevelt University, was recruited from his group, Bobby Charles and the Wanderers. The group of six called themselves the Big Thing, and like most other groups playing in Chicago nightclubs, played Top 40 hits. Realizing the need for both a tenor to complement baritones Lamm and Kath, and a bass player because Lamm's use of organ bass pedals did not provide "adequate bass sound", local tenor and bassist Peter Cetera was invited to join the Big Thing in late 1967.

While gaining some success as a cover band, the group began working on original songs. In June 1968, at manager James William Guercio's request, the Big Thing moved to Los Angeles, California, where they signed with Columbia Records and changed their name to Chicago Transit Authority. While performing on a regular basis at the Whisky a Go Go nightclub in West Hollywood, the band got exposure to more famous musical artists of the time, subsequently opening for Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. Group biographer William James Ruhlmann recorded Walt Parazaider as saying that Jimi Hendrix once told him: "'Jeez, your horn players are like one set of lungs and your guitar player is better than me.'"

Their first record (April 1969), Chicago Transit Authority, is a double album, a rarity for a band's initial studio release. The album made it to No. 17 on the Billboard 200 album chart, sold over one million copies by 1970, and was awarded a platinum disc. The album included a number of pop-rock songs – "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?", "Beginnings", "Questions 67 and 68", and "I'm a Man" – which were later released as singles. For this inaugural recording effort the group was nominated for a Grammy Award for 1969 Best New Artist of the Year. In 2025, the Library of Congress selected Chicago Transit Authority for inclusion as an album in the National Recording Registry.

According to Cetera, the band was booked to perform at Woodstock in 1969, but promoter Bill Graham, with whom they had a contract, exercised his right to reschedule them to play at the Fillmore West on a date of his choosing, and he scheduled them for the Woodstock dates. Santana, which Graham also managed, took Chicago's place at Woodstock, and that performance is considered to be Santana's "breakthrough" gig. A year later, when he needed to replace headliner Joe Cocker, and then Cocker's intended replacement, Jimi Hendrix, Graham booked Chicago to perform at Tanglewood, which has been called a "pinnacle" performance by Concert Vault.

After the release of their first album, the band's name was shortened to Chicago to avoid legal action being threatened by the actual mass-transit company of the same name.

In 1970, less than a year after its first album, the band released a second album, titled Chicago (retroactively known as Chicago II), which is another double-LP. The album's centerpiece track is a seven-part, 13-minute suite composed by Pankow called "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon". The suite yielded two top ten hits: "Make Me Smile" (No. 9 U.S.) and "Colour My World", both sung by Kath. Among the other tracks on the album: Lamm's dynamic but cryptic "25 or 6 to 4" (Chicago's first Top 5 hit), which is a reference to a songwriter trying to write at 25 or 26 minutes before 4 o'clock in the morning, and was sung by Cetera with Terry Kath on guitar; the lengthy war-protest song "It Better End Soon"; and, at the end, Cetera's 1969 Moon landing-inspired "Where Do We Go from Here?" The double-LP album's inner cover includes the playlist, the entire lyrics to "It Better End Soon", and two declarations: "This endeavor should be experienced sequentially", and, "With this album, we dedicate ourselves, our futures and our energies to the people of the revolution. And the revolution in all of its forms." The album was a commercial success, rising to number four on the Billboard 200, and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1970, and platinum in 1991. The band was nominated for two Grammy Awards as a result of this album, Album of the Year and Best Contemporary Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus.

Chicago III, another double LP, was released in 1971 and charted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. Two singles were released from it: "Free" from Lamm's "Travel Suite", which charted at No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100; and "Lowdown", written by Cetera and Seraphine, which made it to No. 35. The album was certified gold by the RIAA in February 1971, and platinum in November 1986.

The band released LPs at a rate of at least one album per year from their third album in 1971 on through the 1970s. During this period, the group's album titles primarily consisted of the band's name followed by a Roman numeral, indicating the album's sequence in their canon. The exceptions to this scheme were the band's fourth album, a live boxed set entitled Chicago at Carnegie Hall, their twelfth album Hot Streets, and the Arabic-numbered Chicago 13. While the live album itself did not bear a number, the four discs within the set were numbered Volumes I through IV.

In 1971, the band released Chicago at Carnegie Hall Volumes I, II, III, and IV, a quadruple LP, consisting of live performances, mostly of music from their first three albums, from a week-long run at Carnegie Hall. Chicago was the first rock act to sell out a week at Carnegie Hall and the live recording was made to chronicle that milestone. Along with the four vinyl discs, the packaging contained some strident political messaging about how "We [youth] can change the System", including wall posters and voter registration information. The album went gold "out of the box" and on to multi-platinum status. William James Ruhlmann says Chicago at Carnegie Hall was "perhaps" the best-selling box set by a rock act and held that record for 15 years. In recognition of setting Carnegie Hall records and the ensuing four-LP live recordings, the group was awarded a Billboard 1972 Trendsetter Award. Drummer Danny Seraphine attributes the fact that none of Chicago's first four albums were issued on single LPs to the productive creativity of this period and the length of the jazz-rock pieces.

In 1972, the band released its first single-disc release, Chicago V, which reached No. 1 on both the Billboard pop and jazz album charts. It features "Saturday in the Park", written by Robert Lamm, which mixes everyday life and political yearning in a more subtle way. It peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1972. The second single released from the album was the Lamm-composed "Dialogue (Part I & II)", which featured a musical "debate" between a political activist (sung by Kath) and a blasé college student (sung by Cetera). It peaked at No. 24 on the Hot 100 chart.