chicago band

Chicago Is Still Feelin’ Stronger Every Day

The recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees mark their 49th consecutive year of touring

Mike Mettler Arts & Entertainment

chicago band
Chicago, which performs July 1 at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino, will mark 50 years as a band in 2017.
PHOTO COURTESY OF CHICAGO

Originally named Chicago Transit Authority after that city’s mass transit system, Chicago the band keeps riffing along, and the end of the line is not in sight.

Now in its 49th year of almost nonstop touring, and prepping for a golden anniversary in 2017, could Chicago, the pioneering “rock band with horns,” conceivably make it all the way to, say, 60 years on the road?

“I don’t know how long it’s gonna go, but there’s no reason to stop now, I can tell you that much,” asserts trumpet player Lee Loughnane (pronounced “Lock-nane”), who’s been a member of the band since its inception in 1967.

Known for such horn-driven and heartfelt hits like Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?, Saturday in the Park, You’re the Inspiration, and Hard to Say I’m Sorry, Chicago, with special guest Rita Wilson, will perform July 1 at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio.

Loughnane, 69, spoke on the phone with PSL to discuss Chicago’s recent honors, why some of the band’s earliest songs have renewed relevance, and the group’s practice of naming albums with Roman numerals.

PSL: Lee, 49 years of touring — that’s an amazing feat.

LL: Yeah, thanks. And with the induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and our documentary Now More Than Ever: The History of Chicago, rather than limping into our 50th year, we are sprinting uphill! We premiered the documentary at the Sedona International Film Festival [SIFF], and it won Best of Fest [2016].

Q: Millions of people have bought Chicago records and seen you play live, and now the voting cognoscenti have recognized your importance to the rock community as a whole. I don’t know if this is the right word for it, but would you consider the Hall of Fame induction a vindication for what you guys have been doing all along?

LL: I can guarantee you that the fan base definitely feels like it’s a vindication. We, the band, feel it’s an honor to be inducted along with our peers — past, present, and future. It’s an exciting honor to have endowed upon you. It’s great to be a part of it.

Q: When was the first time you got to Southern California, and what did you think of it?

LL: Ah yes. I thought it was a whole brand new world. When I saw those palm trees after landing in Los Angeles [in 1968], it was like, ‘Oh my God! This looks pretty cool.’ Literally, it felt like a whole new world, because there are no palm trees in Chicago. And I doubt they’d survive very long if there were any.

Q: What kind of show can concertgoers expect from you at Fantasy Springs?

LL: We’ll either have a two-set show where we’ll have a 20-minute intermission, and then we do an acoustic set. If we do it without the intermission, it’s a 2-hour show that runs like our documentary, like a history of our musical life — songs from the first album all the way up through our latest album [2014’s Chicago XXXVI — Now].

Q: It might be hard to quantify, but do you have favorites in the set that continue to challenge you and excite you, even after 49 years of doing this live?

LL: Oh yeah! Every night, for me, the music never gets old. And it never gets old because it’s always difficult to play tonight as it was the night before.

In order to make it sound the way we want it to sound — and we’re definitely perfectionists in trying to get it right — you’ve got to keep your chops together. It’s warming up, getting ready to play, and making sure when you get to the stage that you’re the best you can be, every time.

PHOTO COURTESY OF CHICAGO
The band has a documentary out called Now More Than Ever: The History of Chicago.

Q: Would you ever perform the Chicago Transit Authority debut album (1969) in full, beginning to end?

LL: Other bands have done stuff like that, yeah. Somehow, for me, that doesn’t seem to be as fulfilling as the excitement of starting a show with Introduction, the first song we recorded on that first album, which is something that we’ve been doing lately. It’s Terry [Kath]’s song, telling what it is we’re going to do, and how we do it. It goes through many different styles that we still do today. [Founding Chicago guitarist Terry Kath passed away from an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound in January 1978.]

I saw a quote recently from Robert [Lamm, founding keyboardist and vocalist]. I’m paraphrasing it, but he pretty much says that other groups and artists try to remake themselves. David Bowie did it many, many times, and Madonna can do it sometimes, even with a hairstyle. But Chicago — we have done it all with our music, and there’s no way we’re going to become a rap group or a techno group.

We have dabbled in all of these styles, but that’s part of the beauty of the band. We have so many different styles that that’s what we are. And presenting the band as we are to a concert audience is the most appropriate thing.

Q: Do you think songs of yours like Someday and Liberation [both on CTA] are going to be just as meaningful later this summer?

LL: Uh, yeah, they will again — as well as Dialogue (Part One) and (Part Two), which came a little later [1972, Chicago V]. It’s between two college kids — one who’s an actual student, and one who’s, “Yeah, well, I don’t know, maaan.” Almost like me, walking around a campus!”

Q: And now here we are in the presidential election season, and the statements in those songs are as relevant now as they were in 1969. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

LL: It’s probably the “history repeats itself” aspect of life, you know? Unfortunately, it continues over and over and over again, and in many different areas.

Q: I have to ask you how the Chicago album-numbering system occurred, seeing how you’re now all the way up to Chicago XXXVI. The second album, released in 1970, was called Chicago, but it really should be named Chicago II, shouldn’t it?

LL: That’s right. The band and the first album were called Chicago Transit Authority, and we changed the name in the liner notes to Chicago. [The city’s transit authority threatened the band with legal action if it didn’t change its name.] Subsequently, every album after that was called Chicago, which is why the Roman numerals came into being. We had to differentiate one album from another.”

Chicago with special guest Rita Wilson, 8 p.m., July 1 at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino Special Events Center, 84245 Indio Springs Parkway, Indio, 800-827-2946, www.fantasyspringsresort.com