Chicago (The Band)

 

Back in the 1970s, I never really thought about Chicago. I knew about them because we had a great FM radio station in Albuquerque that played all kinds of wonderful music, and the band definitely came on the air. My brother used to practice drums to them, and I had friends into them, but I didn't pay much attention.

Recently, I stumbled onto them on YouTube, and they blew me away! Songs I had heard hundreds of times before, like 25 or 6 to 4, suddenly sounded different. I could sense that they were more than just a rock band, or a rock band with horns. They were progressive rock, jazz rock, rock'n'roll!

I bought this boxed set, The Studio Albums 1969-1978, which was very inexpensive on Amazon. I haven't made it all the way through it, and I don't like everything, but it has some amazing tracks. Like Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon from Chicago II, which includes Color My World and Make Me Smile, and is an amazing suite of songs.

Bottom line is I underestimated Chicago. I thought of them as pop, or just rock, and didn't realize the depth of their music, or their expressiveness, or the fact that the horns in the band really make them so much more progressive than so many other bands. It adds drama and highlights their ability to go beyond simple rock'n'roll.