Music for Grownups: 40 Years of Chicago
By: Richard Gehr | Source: AARP.org | 2008-08-14
Richard Gehr is a veteran music critic based in New York City. His reviews for AARP.org appear every Tuesday; his columns on Thursdays.
Chicago's new album, Stone for Sisyphus, was supposed to hit the streets in 1993. Instead, due to grumpy record-company executives and a stubborn band, Sisyphus remained one of the music industry's most famous "lost albums" until now. The record intended to be Chicago XXII is instead Chicago XXXII.
Chicago has persevered, thrived, and remains one of the most popular touring acts in the country. The reasons will become apparent when Chicago performs on Sept. 5, 2008, during AARP's
Life@50+ | National Event & Expo.
Founded as The Big Thing in 1967, the band moved to Los Angeles the following year and changed its name to Chicago Transit Authority. After releasing their debut album in 1969, they were forced to shorten their moniker under legal pressure by the real CTA. More than 40 years later, Chicago's history has to be considered in eras rather than album by album. And while some believe the band's eras consist simply of several creatively fertile years followed by decades of radio-friendly rock balladry, co-founder and trumpeter Lee Loughnane (pronounced "lock-nain") disputes that notion.
"We started out as a musical band and we continued as a musical band," said Loughnane during a phone interview from Boston, where Chicago performed recently. "The hits machine resulted with the music marketplace becoming more compartmentalized. Radio stations played fewer tracks, so it was harder to get on the radio. You almost had to have your own slot to fit into their formats, and ballads became our slot. And every one of those ballads still works every night, and still challenges us musically. When we were experimenting, we stretched things out to make long songs that no radio station would play. They had to be edited down. So we tried to put all the experimental elements into a shorter format. Like other bands, we had to fit everything we wanted to say into four minutes."
According to Loughnane, Reprise Records' decision not to release Sisyphus was a case of an immovable force meeting an irresistible object. What was it like for a band with Chicago's success and reputation to have an album rejected?
"It was unique," Loughnane said. "We'd had 21 previous albums accepted, mixed, mastered, and released to the public. It was quite a surprise, because we felt then, and we still feel today, that the music was good enough to be released, for sure. The non-release didn't have anything to do with the music. It had more to do with egos: ours and theirs."
Chicago refused to let the company's executives hear the album during production, which was perceived as an insult. "I think they wanted to get rid of some of the baby-boomer bands at that time as well," suggested Loughnane, "so we gave them a perfect excuse. But I don't think anyone realized we were going to be around this long. Most bands, including ours, think they're going to do one, maybe two, albums. Thirty-two albums later, it seems we might be able to go on as long as we want."
Bands can often be compared to marriages. How does Loughnane account for Chicago's 40-plus-year run, and what sort of a relationship does he think it is? "Our band marriage," Loughnane said with a laugh, "has lasted a lot longer than some of our real marriages! Four out of the six original members are still with the band. We learned early on that when somebody is having a bad day, let 'em be. Let 'em work it out or let's talk about it. And if you feel like walking out the door and creating a problem, we'll pull you back in and straighten your butt out until you decide you're going to play the game again. We’ve learned to deal with each other's personalities and egos, but it's not always easy."
Currently on one of its longer tours in years, Loughnane admits that the hardest part of his job is being away from his family while on the road. "Being onstage is easy," he said. "I don't mind putting time into practicing and doing all the things it takes to work up to the performance. But not being around the family? You never get used to that and it starts wearing on you after a while."
If Chicago could do it all over again, would they have done anything differently? "Not at all. It had to go this way to get to where we are now. We've always enjoyed what we do. Obviously, you wake up some days and think, 'I don't know if I want to do this anymore.' And then you come to your senses and think, 'What else am I going to do? Drive a cab?'"
Chicago has persevered, thrived, and remains one of the most popular touring acts in the country. The reasons will become apparent when Chicago performs on Sept. 5, 2008, during AARP's
Life@50+ | National Event & Expo.
Founded as The Big Thing in 1967, the band moved to Los Angeles the following year and changed its name to Chicago Transit Authority. After releasing their debut album in 1969, they were forced to shorten their moniker under legal pressure by the real CTA. More than 40 years later, Chicago's history has to be considered in eras rather than album by album. And while some believe the band's eras consist simply of several creatively fertile years followed by decades of radio-friendly rock balladry, co-founder and trumpeter Lee Loughnane (pronounced "lock-nain") disputes that notion.
"We started out as a musical band and we continued as a musical band," said Loughnane during a phone interview from Boston, where Chicago performed recently. "The hits machine resulted with the music marketplace becoming more compartmentalized. Radio stations played fewer tracks, so it was harder to get on the radio. You almost had to have your own slot to fit into their formats, and ballads became our slot. And every one of those ballads still works every night, and still challenges us musically. When we were experimenting, we stretched things out to make long songs that no radio station would play. They had to be edited down. So we tried to put all the experimental elements into a shorter format. Like other bands, we had to fit everything we wanted to say into four minutes."
According to Loughnane, Reprise Records' decision not to release Sisyphus was a case of an immovable force meeting an irresistible object. What was it like for a band with Chicago's success and reputation to have an album rejected?
"It was unique," Loughnane said. "We'd had 21 previous albums accepted, mixed, mastered, and released to the public. It was quite a surprise, because we felt then, and we still feel today, that the music was good enough to be released, for sure. The non-release didn't have anything to do with the music. It had more to do with egos: ours and theirs."
Chicago refused to let the company's executives hear the album during production, which was perceived as an insult. "I think they wanted to get rid of some of the baby-boomer bands at that time as well," suggested Loughnane, "so we gave them a perfect excuse. But I don't think anyone realized we were going to be around this long. Most bands, including ours, think they're going to do one, maybe two, albums. Thirty-two albums later, it seems we might be able to go on as long as we want."
Bands can often be compared to marriages. How does Loughnane account for Chicago's 40-plus-year run, and what sort of a relationship does he think it is? "Our band marriage," Loughnane said with a laugh, "has lasted a lot longer than some of our real marriages! Four out of the six original members are still with the band. We learned early on that when somebody is having a bad day, let 'em be. Let 'em work it out or let's talk about it. And if you feel like walking out the door and creating a problem, we'll pull you back in and straighten your butt out until you decide you're going to play the game again. We’ve learned to deal with each other's personalities and egos, but it's not always easy."
Currently on one of its longer tours in years, Loughnane admits that the hardest part of his job is being away from his family while on the road. "Being onstage is easy," he said. "I don't mind putting time into practicing and doing all the things it takes to work up to the performance. But not being around the family? You never get used to that and it starts wearing on you after a while."
If Chicago could do it all over again, would they have done anything differently? "Not at all. It had to go this way to get to where we are now. We've always enjoyed what we do. Obviously, you wake up some days and think, 'I don't know if I want to do this anymore.' And then you come to your senses and think, 'What else am I going to do? Drive a cab?'"
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