(Continued from Part Two)
Chicago released the album Chicago VIII in 1975. This song by Pankow remembers his childhood. "Old Days" rose to #3 on the Adult chart and #5 Popular. Pankow's talent for arranging is evident as he shifts from a major to minor key on "Of a world gone away" and also adds strings about halfway through, both to emphasize that we are all now adults.
By this time, Chicago was turning towards emphasizing love songs and Lamm, who had written many of the group's early hits, wrote one of his few in that category. "Never Been In Love Before" stands as one of the best Chicago songs never released as a single.
Chicago X in 1976 featured one of the group's biggest career hits, Cetera's two million-selling "If You Leave Me Now", which was the first Chicago song to feature an acoustic guitar, which was played by producer Guercio. "If You Leave Me Now" topped charts in very major country, #1 in the U.S. for two weeks and #1 in the U.K. for three weeks.
Chicago also won Favorite Popular Rock Band, Duo, or Group at the American Music Awards.
Chicago was always a band at their best when they mixed ballads with political messages with rock & roll with horn-dominated jazz rock. The success of "If You Leave Me Now" was both a blessing and a curse. After it hit #1, the group got away from many of the things that made them great and concentrated mostly on ballads. The ballads were still good, but fans in coming years would miss the other elements.
In 1977, the group returned with Chicago XI, highlighted by Cetera's ballad "Baby, What A Big Surprise", a #4 smash in the U.S. Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys returned for backing vocals along with Tim Cetera, Peter's brother. Parazaider played flute with Louchnane playing the piccolo trumpet on the track.
The album reached #6 and sold over one million copies in its first year. "Policeman" is Lamm's sensitive look at a middle-aged beat cop, with arrangement by Pankow. According to liner notes, Lamm's inspiration is from the writings of former Los Angeles police officer Joseph Wambaugh, who co-created the television series Police Story and also wrote several police-related novels.
Here we have the story of a man who yearns for simple freedoms before life became difficult to understand. But it has a much deeper meaning than that.
Seraphine wrote the song with Hawk Wolinski of Rufus about a friend of Seraphine's, Fred Pappalardo.
Pappalardo was a drummer with the band Illinois Speed Press, also managed by Guercio and signed to Columbia. Fred became gravely ill. "This was after we had made it; we were selling out arenas," Seraphine told Something Else! "A dear friend of mine called me and said, 'Danny, Fred is pretty sick. He'd like to see you.', Danny continued.
"I was just about to go on a tour; we were leaving
in two days. I said, ‘I’ll come by after I get back.’
He said: ‘Danny, he might not be here when you
get back.’ I said: ‘OK, I’ll be right over.’ He was
in a ward, and we talked. It was tearful, very
tearful. I knew I was saying goodbye to him,
basically. I thanked him for being such a friend.”
That moment gave Seraphine inspiration to write "Take Me Back To Chicago", a hidden gem on the album that includes Chaka Khan on backing vocals. “A nurse came in and said she was going to put him on a bed pan, and he asked me to leave because he didn’t want me to remember me like that,” Seraphine said. “That’s where the line ‘remember me at my best’ comes from. That really stuck with me; it really haunted me."
In 1977, Madison Square Garden (capacity of 20,000) announced its Gold Ticket Award, which would be given to those acts who had brought in 100,000 total fans. At the time, Chicago was one of eleven artists who had achieved the feat and when the band performed on October 28, they received the award for drawing 180,000 people in nine sold-out shows.
1978 was a tumultuous year for the group. Guercio's purchase of Caribou Ranch caused consternation on how he could have enough money to purchase the property and led to suspicions among group members that he was taking advantage of them and then firing of Guercio as manager.
Then, disaster struck. On January 23, Kath was at a party and pointed a gun he thought was unloaded at his head and pulled the trigger. The gun indeed was loaded and Kath died instantly. The surviving members gave serious thought to splitting up but finally decided to soldier on without one of their founding members. The group considered 30 guitarists who auditioned before deciding on Donnie Dacus.
In 1978, Chicago released the album Hot Streets, produced by Phil Ramone, who rose to fame as Billy Joel's producer. The single "Alive Again" reflected the band's renewed optimism and Pankow revealed he "originally wrote it as a love song but ultimately as recognition of Kath's guiding spirit shining down from above".
Mike Stahl, who was the group's audio engineer at the time, said in an interview with ProSound Web that the rhythm section of Lamm, Dacus, Cetera and Seraphine came into the studio and began jamming one day. Ramone recorded the jam, and despite recording the rhythm track 10 more times, it was that jam that made it to the album.
Absent of the jazz-rock style that Kath advocated, Hot Streets was the first Chicago album since their debut to not reach the Top 10. "No Tell Lover", co-written by Cetera, Loughnane and Seraphine, reached #3 on the Adult Contemporary chart but only #13 overall. The Bee Gees, who were recording the landmark album Spirits Having Flown next door, were asked to help on this album, with keyboardist Blue Weaver playing synchronized strings on this song.
Chicago recorded the album at Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida. The third single from the album was "Gone Long Gone".
The band released the album Chicago 13, again produced by Ramone, in 1979. Dacus left the group following the concert tour that supported the album. Seraphine wrote this song with David Wolinski, who was a keyboardist with Rufus at the time. The song tells the story of Danny's childhood in a tough neighborhood in Chicago and his escape from that life by joining the group. Maynard Ferguson plays an awesome trumpet solo on "Street Player".
Chicago XIV in 1980 represented another shift in musical direction, as the trademark horns were not as prevalent as on previous albums. Chris Pinnick became the group's new guitarist and stayed through 1985. The album stalled at #71 and did not attain Gold status. One exception to the otherwise ordinary group of tracks is "Manipulation".
The group was in a bit of a slump, but they would rebound in a big way!
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