Concert: Chicago

Keywords

Chicago Concert Schedule

Chicago Gigs

Chicago

Album

Songs

Video

Music

Background:

Chicago is the longest-running and most commercially successful of the hordes of jazz-rock bands with horn sections that sprung up in the late '60s wake of Blood, Sweat and Tears. After major personnel changes which included the death of founding guitarist Terry Kath due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound Chicago eventually mutated into a more conventional pop group that was able to score hit after hit well into the '80s, usually with romantic ballads.

They remain among the best-selling American bands of all time. More recently, they briefly returned to their roots with an album of big-band era standards given the Chicago treatment.

But the conflict between Peter Cetera's style of composing and those of the rest of the group caused Cetera to leave the band in 1985 for a solo career. By the end of the decade, the group planned and recorded a concept album, Stone Of Sisyphus. Their record company at the time, Warner Bros. Records, was unhappy with the finished result, and thus the album was never released officially, although in succeeding years bootleg recordings of the album have surfaced worldwide, including over the Internet. Selected tracks from the unreleased album have since been officially released on a compilation greatest hits CD box set.

During 1989, they did a joint concert tour with The Beach Boys. The band continued to be innovative in the decade of the 1990s, even though their popularity began to decline. In 1995, they attempted to merge their unique sound with Big Band music for their album Chicago: Night And Day (Big Band), which consisted of covers of songs originally recorded by Sarah Vaughan, Glenn Miller, and Duke Ellington who was the main inspirationbehind the album. During a L.A. concert in 1997, they teamed up with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra to perform a James Pankow/Dwight Mikelson orchestral arrangement of Pankow's rock epic 'Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon'.
Lead singers have changed from time to time (ranging from Bill Champlin to Jason Scheff), but the group still keeps active more than thirtyfive years after its
founding. At the turn of the century the band sold their entire recorded output to Rhino Records.

Discography

U.S. Albums

The Chicago Transit Authority (1969)
Chicago (1970)
Chicago III (1971)
Chicago at Carnegie Hall (1971)
Chicago V (1972)
Chicago VI (1973)
Chicago VII (1974)
Chicago VIII (1975)
Chicago's Greatest Hits (1975)
Chicago X (1976)
Chicago XI (1977)
Hot Streets (1978)
Chicago 13 (1979)
Chicago XIV (1980)
Greatest Hits, Volume II (1981)
Chicago 16 (1982)
Chicago 17 (1984)
Chicago 18 (1986)
Chicago 19 (1988)
Greatest Hits (1982-1989) (1989)
Twenty 1 (1991)
Night and Day: Big Band (1995)
The Heart of Chicago 1967-1997 (1997)
The Heart of Chicago 1967-1998 Volume 2 (1998)
Chicago XXV: The Christmas Album (1998; rereleased 2003 with added tracks as What's It Gonna Be, Santa?)
Chicago XXVI - Live in Concert (1999)
The Very Best of: Only the Beginning (2002)
Love Songs (2005)

U.S. Singles

"Make Me Smile" - highest position #9, 1970, from the album Chicago
"25 Or 6 To 4" - #4, 1970, from Chicago
"Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" - #7, 1970, from The Chicago Transit Authority
"Beginnings" - #7, 1971, from The Chicago Transit Authority
"Questions 67 and 68" - #24, 1971, from The Chicago Transit Authority
"I'm A Man" - #49, 1971, from The Chicago Transit Authority
"Colour My World" - #7, 1971, from Chicago
"Free" - #20, 1971, from Chicago III
"Lowdown" - #35, 1971, from Chicago III
"Saturday In The Park" - #3, 1972, from Chicago V
"Dialogue (Part I & II)" - #24, 1972, from Chicago V
"Just You 'N' Me" - #4, 1973, from Chicago VI
"Feelin' Stronger Every Day" - #10, 1973, from Chicago VI
"(I've Been) Searchin' So Long" - #9, 1974, from Chicago VII
"Call On Me" - #6, 1974, from Chicago VII
"Wishing You Were Here" - #11, 1974, from Chicago VII
"Harry Truman" - #13, 1975, from Chicago VIII
"Old Days" - #5, 1975, from Chicago VIII
"Another Rainy Day In New York City" - #32, 1976, from Chicago X
"If You Leave Me Now" - #1, 1976, from Chicago X
"Baby What A Big Surprise" - #4, 1977, from Chicago XI
"Alive Again" - #14, 1978, from Hot Streets
"No Tell Lover" - #14, 1978, from Hot Streets
"Hard To Say I'm Sorry / Get Away" - #1, 1982, from Chicago 16
"Love Me Tomorrow" - #22, 1982, from Chicago 16
"Stay The Night" - #16, 1984, from Chicago 17
"Hard Habit To Break" - #3, 1984, from Chicago 17
"You're The Inspiration" - #3, 1984, from Chicago 17
"Along Comes A Woman" - #14, 1984, from Chicago 17
"Will You Still Love Me?" - #3, 1986, from Chicago 18
"If She Would Have Been Faithful ..." - #17, 1987, from Chicago 18
"I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love" - #3, 1988, from Chicago 19
"Look Away" - #1, 1988, from Chicago 19
"You're Not Alone" - #10, 1989, from Chicago 19
"What Kind Of Man Would I Be?" - #5, 1989, from Chicago 19
"Chasin' The Wind" - #39, 1991, from Twenty 1

Important Albums

Live in Toronto (Canada, 1969; rereleased numerous times under various titles)
Live in Japan (Japan, 1972)
Overtime (Canada, 1995)
Chicago: 25 Years of Gold (Australia, 1999)
The Very Best of Chicago (Europe, 2002)
The Chicago Story: The Complete Greatest Hits (Europe, 2003)

Boxed sets

Chicago Group Portrait (1991)
Chicago The Box (2003)

DVDs

Chicago: Live By Request (2003, A&E Network)
Soundstage Presents Chicago - Live In Concert (2004)
Chicago/Earth Wind & Fire - Live at the Greek Theatre (2005)