The Best Of Chicago: 40th Anniversary Edition

Chicago

In the booklet of the new two-CD set, The Best Of Chicago: 40th Anniversary Edition, Chicago’s sax/flute player (and original member) Walter Parazaider boasts, “Going back to Glenn Miller days, I don’t think there’s another horn section that’s lasted 40 years intact.” Indeed it is the horn section — Parazaider, trombonist James Pankow and trumpeter Lee Loughnane — that is the true heart of Chicago, providing them with a unique sound since 1967. Oh yeah, they have written a few songs along the way too.

From the very beginning, Chicago had hits — and big ones at that. The first three songs on the first disc of this set — “Questions 67 and 68”, “25 or 6 to 4” and “Does Anybody Really Know What Time it is” (all keyboardist Robert Lamm compositions) have been FM radio staples for decades, blending those killer horns with killer hooks for a sound never before heard in rock and roll. With almost everybody in the band able to sing, you have the additional great mix of vocals as well as some great ‘character’ voices. Check out Terry ‘left-us-way-to-early’ Kath’s vocals on “Make Me Smile, and the seminal “Colour My World” for proof of this.

The first CD of The Best Of Chicago: 40th Anniversary Edition contains 15 songs, all of them hits. Sure they range in popularity, from the wildly successful “Saturday In The Park” and “If You Leave Me Now” to a lesser known track like “Another Rainy Day In New York City,” but they are all worthy of inclusion here. The second CD follows Chicago’s later period. Fifteen more tunes, including hits like “Baby, What A Big Surprise,” “Hard To Say I’m Sorry,” “You’re The Inspiration” and “What Kind Of Man Would I Be,” basically Chicago’s latter day chart-makers. Interestingly enough it is with these songs, especially those coming out of around the Chicago 16 and 17 albums that tensions formed in the band.

It seems the producer of the band at this point, David Foster, both brought Chicago their greatest success and their most trouble. Foster encouraged singer/bassist Peter Cetera as the ‘voice’ of the band and pushed the high tenor of his distinctive vocals, much to the exclusion of the band’s other singers like Lamm. Foster brought in other songwriters and arranged their songs with minimal horns (Pankow quips in the CD booklet: “We call the 80s ‘the hornless period’).” I remember seeing Chicago at the time and marveled at how the horn section guys seemed to be playing keys as much as the horns.

By their 18th album, Chicago had a new bass player and vocalist in the form Jason Scheff (Cetera left the group to pursue a solo career). They had hits with the obligatory Diane Warren tunes, “Hard To Say I’m Sorry” and “Love Me Tomorrow,” but Pankow says, “I was hatin’ life,” because the essence of what he considered the band to be, namely horns and their songwriting, was not being featured. In fact, a lot of the songs on this second CD are Chicago hits not penned by Chicago members — “You’re Not Alone,” “Here In My Heart,” and my personal fave of this last 15 years, “Feel.” Maybe it’s because Lamm is singing this one.

But less anyone count Chicago out, here they are four decades later and what some in the band consider to be the very best line-up so far. Even through the accidental untimely death of Kath (one of the great unsung guitar heroes) and the introduction of outside songwriters, even with their at-time-way-too-close-to-adult-contemporary sound, Chicago is still going strong with no sign of stopping. As far as the ‘nuts and bolts of The Best Of Chicago: 40th Anniversary Edition is concerned, there are 30 songs here to choose from, and a great informative booklet (though I would have appreciated the full ‘album’ version of “Beginnings” to the shortened one here). Over all, this set is a good mix of the old and the new from a band that has grown to become an American legend.

~ Ralph Greco, Jr.

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