“Chicago II” is a sprawling 66-minute album that contains three of the band’s hits, two of which — “Make Me Smile” and ‘Colour My World” — are wrapped in the 10-minute “Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon" suite on side two.
So, on Chicago’s last visit to Pittsburgh, at The Pavilion at Star Lake in 2018 on a tour performing that 1969 album in full, you could tell some fans were a little confused when 20 minutes went by without the band playing a single familiar radio song.
On Wednesday, for the first show at Star Lake since the summer of 2019, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band known for its busy, horn-infused sound will go back to its crowd-pleasing set of wall-to-wall hits. Through the ’70s and ’80s, Chicago scored 21 Top 10 singles, the most by any American band during that era, starting in 1970 with “Make Me Smile” and running through the ballad phase, with 1989’s "What Kind of Man Would I Be?"
Chicago arrives with three founding members in singer-keyboardist Robert Lamm, trumpeter Lee Loughnane and trombonist James Pankow. Neil Donell, a member since 2018, is the latest singer to handle the tenor vocals of Peter Cetera, who went solo in 1985.
We spoke with the 74-year-old Loughnane, who spent downtime during the pandemic working with engineer Tim Jessup on the Sept. 10 release of “Chicago at Carnegie Hall Complete,” a 16-CD Rhino boxed set of all eight shows recorded there April 5-10, 1971.
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Q: The last time you were in Pittsburgh you came with the full “Chicago II” album. How would you assess that tour?
A: Since the second album came out and we had more and more successful singles, we had been unable to play a lot of the songs that we had recorded in the past that we would have loved to do live. But we had so many hits, people wondered why we didn't do the hits, ’cause when they came to the show, they expected to hear what had put us on the map, and you can't really blame them. But it made it impossible for us to be able to play those songs and get away with it in a live context.
And when we did the second album, with a second set of hits to round off the night, I think that made everybody feel satisfied with it and I think they really enjoyed hearing the second album and the intensity and how we stretched those out. It was definitely more experimental, but, as it turns out, the hits are like a microcosm of what we did experimentally later on.
Q: What is the game plan this time?
A: This is all hits.
Q: So, maybe the people who hadn’t read about what you're going to do, they won't be confused for an hour.
A: You think they were confused when we did the whole second album?
Q: I think some people don't really pay attention to what they're going to see. Maybe they hear a promo on the radio or go with a friend and it's like, “What are these songs that they're playing?”
A: Right. It went over well, though. How did it go over with you?
Q: Oh, I thought it was great to see you do those deep cuts. If I may ask you to go way back into the early history of Chicago.…
A: Well, you know, they named a city after us....
Q: Yeah, it's been that long, huh?! The concept of rock with horns — how did you guys come up with that? What was the model?
A: We didn't really come up with anything other than wanting to play music. The original idea was to become like a Vegas show band. We came up playing in clubs, like everybody else, and the owners of the clubs inevitably wanted whatever band that came in there to play the Top 40 radio of the month. They didn't want anybody coming in and playing original music because they wanted people to come in and buy drinks. They wanted bands that would play something familiar for their clientele.
Initially, that's what we did. We played Top 40 music and at that time, the songs with brass in them. It was usually background, R&B, really simple stuff. And then when we started writing original music, we started opening up the possibilities for brass by playing more intricate arrangements and making the brass as important as a lead vocal. That's how we pretty much changed things, but, initially it was “Top 40, baby!” Or you got fired.
Q: So, you probably didn't envision the commercial success that you would eventually have?
A: Oh, no. We were just playing and having fun. In fact, when we recorded the first album, we figured we'd have one album, and then when that became successful, we’ll record the second album and maybe we'll have two albums. We had no idea that 50 years later we'd still be doing this along with the 20-somethings. This is like the impossible dream, but I'm sure loving it.
Q: You’re obviously one of the longest-running rock bands and I think the perception of Chicago has changed a couple of times over the years. How do you see the progression of how you've been viewed by the industry, by critics? It’s been a little bit up and down.
A: Up and down, yes! The initial success was we could do nothing wrong, and then when you get too close to the top … same thing with The Beatles. As soon as they started doing something a little different from what was expected of them, they were criticized immediately. And the same thing happened with us. The best thing about it is you don't let it bother you, you just keep going: “Thank you very much, have a great day.”
Q: You went through a period in the ’80s where the ballads really started to take off and you were more popular like on adult contemporary radio than rock.
A: There were a few things that allowed that to happen. I think the individuals in the band proper were writing fewer songs. Some of the drugs and booze and stuff that we were doing started to encroach on what we're doing and we started accepting music from outside writers. And another producer came in. Our original producer let us do all of our own songs. That's what we recorded and those became extremely successful. And when we separated from him and then Terry Kath died, people started having a perception that the band was over, we couldn't do it anymore. And, you know, we just started showing people that we have a deep bench. And we didn't know. We just kept doing what we were doing and seeing what happened next.
The ballad thing came in. We already had “If You Leave Me Now,” our first international hit. That was before we were considered “the ballad band,” I think. That was when David Foster came in and was producing and he started the power-ballad syndrome and we were ahead of the game on that one. So, radio started thinking that is Chicago’s sound, but we never changed. What radio played did change. They would only play ballads. If we had an uptempo tune they would go, “Can you give me one of those ‘If You Leave Me Nows’ or ‘Hard Habit to Breaks’? Would you do that for me, please?”
Q: Did that cause tension within the band?
A: Of course! Because we stopped using the brass, I started playing more guitar and I was playing Moog bass for a while with the ballads ’cause there were no horn parts. But then, you know, we kept going year after year and the success of those songs kept going to the point where we decided to play with orchestras. The orchestras had strings, brass and every other instrument under the sun, and there was no reason that our brass shouldn't play brass on those songs, so Jimmy [Pankow] wrote arrangements to accompany them. And we're still doing those arrangements to this day.
It also shows that when those songs were first recorded, they could have had brass arrangements on them. But it was decided not to, to create a change in the sound somewhat and just use the brass as a signature, bring it in sparingly. Interesting idea but we outlived it.
Q: What would you say has been the key to keeping it going all these years?
A: We still love playing, the same way we did the first day we got together. We just love playing music and we love playing music for people, in front of them. We've always been a traveling band, as it were.
Q: I wonder if you could reminisce about the eight shows that you did in ’71. It was probably a lot of pressure.
A: Probably on the first night, that initial “Oh my God, we’re playing Carnegie Hall!” And then you start playing and you're done. It's like a ballplayer coming out for the All-Star Game and going, “This is like a big game!” and then you start playing the game and you forget about it. You just keep playing. We didn’t think it was that good of an album, initially. We were amazed that it sold a million copies, but when I listen to it now, we played pretty damn good, a lot better than I ever gave us credit for at the time. And it was neat going back to relive that week, for me.
Q: What was it like putting that package together?
A: It was happenstance that they asked me to do this, really, but it was probably the best thing that could have happened, because I know where the bodies are buried. I know exactly what we were playing and who was supposed to play it where and what microphone they were on.
We played eight shows in six nights at Carnegie Hall, the first American rock band to play Carnegie Hall. They asked us to take 41 tapes that we amassed during the weekdays and mix and master all eight shows, whereas the fourth album, [“Chicago at Carnegie Hall”], was a four-record set and it was basically only one of the eight shots. So now it's going to be out on a 16-CD package and encompass all eight shows that we did in the six days.
It was a lot of fun to do. It took us 10 months to pull it together ’cause there were 41 tapes involved that we had to take apart one at a time and remove all the cracks and pops and all of the other stuff that happens with a live performance, and then to try to cut out as much of the ambiance of Carnegie Hall because it was built for classical orchestras and softer, analog music. So, that was an enormous project in itself. Then, we were down to being able to turn the instruments up and add highs and lows and mid-range and all the other things that you can do, especially now, with recordings and make the sound “in your face.” We made the eight shows more like you're sitting in the audience at Carnegie Hall.
Q: One last thing: I was driving around on the Fourth of July listening to “Saturday in the Park” and thinking about that lyric, which always struck me as strange. How does he not know whether it was the Fourth of July? Is this a memory that he's looking back on?
A: I don't know. [laughs] Maybe he just smoked a joint and he didn’t know what day it was or what year. I really don't have any idea what he was thinking other than he was in Central Park and thinking it was the Fourth of July. It made the lyric sound good. It was a lilting line. That's my best guess.
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