Rock and Roll

In 1967, Chicago musicians Robert Lamm, James Pankow, Walter Parazaider, Lee Loughnane, Terry Kath, Peter Cetera, and Danny Seraphine formed a group with one dream, to integrate all the musical diversity from their beloved city and weave a new sound, rock 'n' roll band with horns. Their dream turned into 20 Top Ten singles, 12 Top Ten albums (five of which were #1), and sales of more than 120 million records.

Pursuant to that goal, Parazaider enrolled at Chicago's DePaul University, all the while still playing "Many gigs and smoke-filled rooms and dance halls, and also some orchestra balls." It was at DePaul that he met another young Chicago musician, Jimmy Guercio, who years later would become Chicago's producer. "We started playing in different rock 'n roll bands in the area."

But while doing all that academic work, Parazaider had also gotten a non-classical musical idea he thought had promise: a rock 'n roll band with horns. In the trendy world of pop music, horns took a back seat in the mid-'6O's, when bands, imitating the four-piece rhythm section of the Beatles, stayed with the limits of guitars-bass-drums. Even the Saxophone, so much a part of '50's rock 'n roll, was heard less often. Only in R&B, which maintained something of the big band tradition, did people such as James Brown and others continue to use horn sections regularly. In the summer of l966, the Beatles turned around and brought horns back. Their "Revolver" album featured songs such as "Got To Get You Into My Life," which included two trumpets and two tenor saxophones.

Parazaider's band at the time was the "Missing Links", which featured a very talented guy named Terry Kath on bass. Kath had been a friend of Parazaider's and Guercio's since they were teenagers. On drums was Danny Seraphine, who had been raised in Chicago's Little Italy section. Trumpet player Lee Loughnane, another DePaul student, sometimes sat in with the band.

Like other future members of Chicago, Loughnane began performing in local groups. First, there was the Shannon Show Band, an Irish group in which he found himself part of a three-man horn section trumpet, trombone, and tenor saxophone just like the one Chicago would use. "I even sang my first lead vocal in that band," Loughnane recalls. "I sang "Kicks," by Paul Revere and the Raiders. I was so good at it that I became a singing sensation with Chicago. I sang three leads on 23 albums!"

Through Terry Kath, Loughnane met Seraphine and Parazaider, and he started to sit in with the Missing Links. "Terry and I became thick as thieves," he recalls. "Walt was the only horn player in that band, and he encouraged me to come by and sit in a lot so there would be two horns and you could get that octave R&B sound. It was sort of the thing at the time, and I really enjoyed playing with the band."

Now, Parazaider, Kath, Seraphine, and Loughnane decided to develop Parazaider's concept for a rock 'n roll band with horns. To make the concept work, they needed to bring in additional band members. The first musician Parazaider approached, in the fall of 1966, was a newly transferred DePaul sophomore from Quincy College who played trombone. "Walt had been kind of keeping an eye on me in school," says James Pankow. "He approached me and said, "Hey, man, I've been checking you out, and I like your playing, and I think you got it. I said, "Well, what do you mean, I got it?" He had that twinkle in his eye, and I figured, well, whatever the hell be means, I guess he likes what I do."

Pankow's recruitment brought the new band's complement of horns up to three, but they still needed bass and keyboards. They thought they had found both in a dive on the South Side when they heard piano player "Bobby Charles" of Bobby Charles and the Wanderers, whose real name was Robert Lamm.

Lamm received a phone call. He isn't sure who called him, but the voice on the other end of the phone outlined the ideas of forming a band that could play rock 'n roll with horns in it and asked it he was interested. He said he was. He was also asked if he knew how to play the bass pedals on an organ, thus filling up another sound in the band. "I lied and told them I could," he says. "I needed to learn how to do it real quick, and I did, on the job."

Lamm met the rest of the guys at a meeting set up to determine how to go about achieving their musical goals. The date was February 15th, 1967. "We had a get together in Walter's apartment on the north side of Chicago," says Pankow. "It was Danny, Terry, Robert, Walter, Lee, and myself, and we agreed to devote our lives and our energies to making this project work."

They rehearsed in Parazaider's parents' basement as often as they could. "We figured that the only people with horn sections that were really making any noise were the soul acts," says Pankow, "so we kind of became a soul band doing James Brown and Wilson Pickett stuff."

The group needed a name. Parazaider recalls: "An Italian friend of mine who was going to book us said, "You know, everybody is saying "Thing, Thing this, Thing that. There's a lot of you. We'll call you the Big Thing."

The Big Thing played its first engagement at the GiGi A Go Go is Lyons, Illinois, in March 1967. In June, July, and August, the band appeared in Peoria, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Rockford, and Indianapolis. But the most important early gig was a week-long stand at Shula's Club in Niles, Michigan, August 29 to September 3.

In Niles, they arranged a meeting with Parazaider's old friend Jimmy Guercio, who had become a producer for CBS Records. "He heard us play," Parazaider recalls "He was very impressed ." It was the big break they had been looking for. Guercio told the band to hang on, that he would be in touch. Encouraged by this, they began to develop more of their own original material. "I began to write songs," says Pankow. "Robert began to write more songs, and Terry Kath began to contribute material."

Meanwhile, the Big Thing stayed on the Midwest club circuit through the fall, building a following. An engagement during the second week of December proved to be another important gig. "We were an opening act at Barnaby's in Chicago for a band called the Exceptions, which was the biggest club band in the Midwest, and we stuck around and listened to them," says Pankow. "I was just blown away."

If the Big Thing had stayed late to see the Exceptions, one of the Exceptions had come early to see the Big Thing. "I had heard a lot about these guys," says Peter Cetera, then bass player for the Exceptions. "I was just floored 'cause they were doing songs that nobody else was doing, and in different ways. They were doing the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour" and "Got To Get You Into My Life" and different versions of rock songs with horns."

After the gig, says Pankow, he approached us and said, "I don't know what you guys are doing, but I like it. It's really refreshing. It's cool."

"At the end of the two-week stint," says Cetera, "I was out of the Exceptions and into the Big Thing."

Peter Cetera was born in Chicago on September 13, 1944, and his first instrument was the accordion, which he took up then he was ten. "That's unfortunately true," he admits, when asked about it. "There was accordion and guitar, and for some reason I chose accordion. I don't know why. I guess because I was half Polish, and we played a lot of polkas. It didn't do me any good for my rock 'n roll career, but it actually was a lot of fun."

Cetera perfectly fit the musical needs of the Big Thing. "We needed a bass player at the time," notes Loughnane. "Robert was playing the bass pedals on the organ. He did a pretty good job, but there just wasn't enough bottom with the bass pedals. You needed a real bass in the band. And we needed a tenor voice. We had two baritones (Lamm and Kath), so we had midrange and lower notes covered. But we needed a high voice for the same reason that you have three horns. You have trumpet, tenors and trombone. You cover as much range harmonically as you can, and we wanted to do the same thing vocally. When Peter joined the band, that solidified our vocals. You could get more color musically, and we started building from there."

It was probably at the Big Thing's next appearance at Barnaby's, March 6 - 10, l968, that Guercio came back for a second look. Impressed by the band's improvement, he took action. "He told us to prepare for a move to L.A.," says Pankow, "to keep working on our original material, and he would call us when be he was ready for us."

The band, now renamed "Chicago Transit Authority" by Guercio in honour of the bus line he used to ride to school, was in a creative fervour. Kath, Pankow, and especially Lamm were writing large amounts of original material, with Lamm completing two of the group's most memorable songs, "Questions 67 and 68" and "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" just prior to the departure from Chicago.

Guercio moved quickly. "He got a little two-bedroom house near the Hollywood Freeway, and he told us that he was ready," Pankow recalls. "We made the move in June of 1968. We threw all of our lives in U-haul trailers and drove across the country. The married guys left their wives at home at first because they couldn't afford to bring their families out. We got disturbance calls from the neighbours five times a day because all we did was practice day and night." The band began to play around the Los Angeles area. "I think we made all of $15, $20 at whatever beerhall we could play in the suburbs of Los Angeles for a while there," says Parazaider.

According to the terms of his production deal with CBS, Guercio was given the opportunity to showcase prospective signings for the label three times. He arranged Chicago Transit Authority's first showcase at the Whisky-A-Go-Go in August, but CBS's West coast division turned them down. A month later, CBS turned CTA down again, strike two.

Running short of money, Guercio was asked to produce the second album by Blood, Sweat & Tears, a jazz-rock group on CBS. Intending to use his earnings from the project to continue funding Chicago Transit Authority and to find a way to get them signed to CBS, Guercio sought the band's permission to produce someone else. He said, "To tell you the truth, I really haven't recorded horns as a whole band situation. I've recorded horns that did sort of blaps here and there or little parts here and there. This would be a good way for me to learn how to record horns."

Instead of risking another showcase with CBS, Guercio cut a demo of CTA, and when it began to get notice in the industry, CBS president Clive Davis reversed the decision of the West Coast executives and signed the group. Seven months after arriving in California, almost two years since they had come together in Parazaider's apartment, and after more than a cumulative half century of playing and practicing, the seven members of Chicago Transit Authority finally were given a chance to show the world what they could do.

In January 1969, when the group flew to New York to begin work on its first album, it faced two problems it knew nothing about. The first was that, because the Guercio-produced Blood, Sweat and Tears LP at first appeared to be a flop (though it later became a spectacular hit), the status of his new project, CTA, suffered: The label curtailed the amount of time the band would have in the CBS studio. The group was allowed only five days of basic tracking and five days of overdubbing. And then there was the second problem. Although they were well rehearsed, the band members had never been in a studio before.

"We actually went in and started making "Chicago Transit Authority" and found out we knew very little about what we were doing," says Walt Parazaider. "I had done commercial jingles in Chicago, but this was a totally different thing for all of us. The first song was "Does Anybody Really Know What Tine It Is ?" We tried to record it as a band, live, all of us in the studio at once. How the hell do you get seven guys playing it right the first time? I just remember standing in the middle of that room. I didn't want to look at anybody else for fear I'd throw them off and myself, too. I think that we actually realized after we didn't get anything going that it had to be rhythm section first, then the horns, and that's basically how we recorded a lot of the albums."

But after they worked out the basic mechanics of recording, the large bulk of material the band had amassed began to be a problem to fit on the then standard 35-minute, one-disc LP. The band had more than enough material for a double album, and they wanted to make a statement. If they had lot to say, this seemed like the time to say it. Early 1969 was a period when rock was taking on a seriousness undreamed of only a few years before. The Beatles had recently released their two-record "white" album and had also shattered the previously sacrosanct three-minute limit for a single by spending over seven minutes singing "Hey Jude."

When told of the band's intention to make a double album, Columbia's business people informed Guercio that CTA could have a double album only if they agreed to cut their royalties. The band agreed.

Released in April 1969," Chicago Transit Authority" was played by the newly powerful FM album rock stations, especially college radio. "AM radio wouldn't touch us because we were unpackagable," says Pankow. "They weren't able to pigeonhole our music. It was too different, and the cuts on the albums were so long that they really weren't tailored for radio play unless they were edited, and we didn't know anything about editing. The album was an underground hit, FM radio was embraced by the college audiences in the late '6O's. All of a sudden, the college campuses around the country discovered Chicago. The album broke into Billboard magazine's Top LP's chart for the week ending May 17, 1969, and eventually peaked at Number 17. By the end of 1972, it had amassed 148 weeks on the chart, making it the longest running album by a rock group up to that time.

It was about this time that the real Chicago Transit Authority (the elevated train line in Chicago) sued the band over the use of it's name. A simple shortening to"Chicago" was agreed on.

In early December, "Chicago" flew to London to begin a 14-date European tour and when they returned to the U.S., their first album had become a gold record. In between tour dates in August 1969, Chicago had found the time to record its second album. One of the first songs Lamm brought in for he album was "25 Or 6 To 4," a song with a lyric Chicago fans have pondered ever since. What does that title mean ? "It's just a reference to the time of day," says Lamm. As for the lyric: "The song is about writing a song. It's not mystical."

The second album also saw the debut of a new songwriter in the band, although the circumstances under which be became a writer are unfortunate. During a break in the touring in the summer of 1969, Peter Cetera was set upon at a baseball game at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. "Four marines didn't like a long-haired rock 'n' roller in a baseball park," Cetera recounts, "and of course I was a Cub fan, and I was in Dodger Stadium, and that didn't do so well. I got in a fight and got a broken jaw in three places, and I was in intensive care for a couple of days." The incident had an effect on Cetera's career and an impact on his singing style. "The only funny thing I can think about the whole incident," he says, "is that, with my jaw wired together, I actually went on the road, and I was actually singing through my clenched jaw, which, to this day, is still the way I sing."

When it was released in January 1970, the second album, instead of featuring a picture of the band on the cover and a title drawn from one of the songs, had the band's distinctive logo on the cover and was called Chicago II. From the start, Chicago took a conceptual approach to the way it was presented to the public. The album covers were overseen by John Berg, the head of the art department at Columbia Records, and Nick Fasciano designed the logo, which has adorned every album cover in the group catalogue. "Guercio was insistent upon the logo being the dominant factor in the artwork," says Pankow, even though the artwork varied greatly from cover to cover. Thus, the logo might appear carved into a rough wooden panel, as on Chicago V, or tooled into an elaborate leatherwork design, like Chicago VII, or become a mouth-watering chocolate bar, for the Chicago X cover, which was a Grammy Award winner.

And then there were those sequential album titles. "People always asked why we were numbering our albums," jokes Cetera, "and the reason is, because we always argued about what to call it. 'All right, III, all right, IV!", Actually, the band never attempted to title the albums, feeling that the music spoke for itself.

In commercial terms, the major change that came with Chicago II was that it opened the floodgates for Chicago as a singles band. In October 1969, Columbia had re-tested the waters by releasing "Beginnings" as a single, but AM radio still wasn't interested, and the record failed to chart. All of this changed, however, when the label excerpted two songs, "Make Me Smile" and "Colour My World," from Pankow's ballet and released them as the two sides of a single in March 1970. "I was driving in my car down Santa Monica Boulevard in L.A.," Pankow remembers, "and I turned the radio to KHJ and 'Make Me Smile' came on. I almost hit the car in front of me, 'cause it's my song, and I'm hearing it on the biggest station in L.A. At that point, I realized, hey, we have a hit single. They don't play you in L.A. unless you're hit-bound. So, that was one of the more exciting moments in my early career."

The single reached the Top 10, while Chicago II immediately went gold and got to Number 4 on the LP chart, joining the first album, which was still selling well. A second single, Lamm's "25 Or 6 To 4," was an even bigger hit in the summer of 1970, peaking at Number 4.

But instead of reaching into the second album for a third single, Columbia and Chicago decided to try to re-stimulate interest in the first album, and succeeded. The group's next single was "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" which became their third Top 10 hit in a row by the start of 1971. Ironically, Chicago's belated singles success cost the group its "underground" following. "All of a sudden," Loughnane recalls,"people started saying we sold out. The same music! Exactly the same songs !"

As January 1971 rolled around, once again Chicago had found time to record a new double album. "That third album scared us,' says Parazaider, "because we basically had run out of the surplus of material that we had, and we were still working a lot on the road. We were afraid that we were getting ready to record a little under the gun. But I don't think it shows."

After the singles from Chicago III had run their course, helping the album to its chart peak at Number 2 and its gold record award, Columbia turned back to the first and second albums which were still in the charts, re-releasing as a single "Beginnings" backed by "Colour My World," and then "Questions 67 and 68". "They all became hits," notes Loughnane, "to the point where radio said, "If you release something off that first album again, we'll neverplay another one of your records."

All of this meant that, with its first three albums, Chicago had reached astonishing popular success. All three double albums were still on the charts throughout 1971, and hits came from each one. But how to top that? In October, Columbia released a lavish four-record box set chronicling the group's week-long stand at Carnegie Hall, the previous April. Manager/producer Guercio had to fight Columbia to get the label to release the album, due to its manufacturing cost. He agreed to assume the extra expense if the album didn't sell a million units. The bill never arrived. "Chicago At Carnegie Hall" went gold out of the box and has since been certified for sales of two million copies.

Though Chicago had made previous visits to Europe and the Far East, it embarked on its first full-scale world tour in February 1972. The high point of the tour was in Japan, where Chicago recorded another live album that was so superior to the Carnegie Hall album, there's really no comparison. "The Japanese hooked up two eight-track machines together to make 16 tracks," notes Parazaider. "The sound was excellent."

Chicago's next studio album marked a change from its first three studio works in a number of respects. For one thing, Chicago V, released in July 1972, was only a single album. For another, the lengthy instrumental excursions of past records had been cut down, leaving nine relatively tightly arranged songs. "When we released all those double records, there wasn't a limit on how many songs you could have on a record and how many copyrights you could get off of that record. Then the companies decided that they were only going to pay on ten copyrights per record no matter how many songs there were." The new copyright rule benefited some recording artists at a time when performers were recording extended compositions, sometimes fitting only one per side of a record. But Chicago, which previously had given its fans extra value for their money on double-record sets, suffered. "We wanted to be able to write songs that stretched and said everything we wanted to say," Loughnane notes. "VII was the last double record, I don't think you ever saw another double record, from anybody, as a matter of fact, because there was no reason. Monetarily, everybody lost from that."

Chicago V is perhaps best remembered for Lamm's "Saturday In The Park". The album sold very well, topping the charts for nine weeks, the first of five straight Chicago albums to reach Number 1. "Saturday In The Park" became the group's first gold single, hitting Number 3.

In October 1972, a second single from Chicago V, Lamm's 'Dialogue (Part I & II)' with vocals by Kath and Cetera, was released. "Dialogue" became an instant favourite with fans. Guercio, meanwhile, bought a ranch in Colorado and built a recording studio there that he dubbed Caribou. He was seeking to avoid the expense and restrictions of the New York studios and what he considered their outdated equipment. "We got a little tired of recording in New York, with maids beating on hotel room doors," says Parazaider. "The sixth, seventh, eighth, tenth and eleventh albums were done up at Caribou Ranch, 8,500 feet up in the Rockies, about an hour's drive outside of Boulder."

The first fruits of the new studio were released in June 1973, in the form of the single "Feelin' Stronger Every Day" and the album Chicago VI. "Feeling Stronger Every Day" was about a relationship, Pankow says, but "underlying that relationship it's almost like the band is feeling stronger than ever." Pankow's "Just You 'N' Me," which would be released as the album's second single, and which would go gold and hit Number 1 in the Cash Box chart (Number 4 in Billboard), was one of Chicago's most memorable ballads and very much a harbinger of the future. "'Just You 'N' Me' was the result of a lovers' quarrel," Pankow recalls. "I was in the process of becoming engaged to a woman who became my wife for over 20 years. We had a disagreement, and rather than put my fist through the wall or get crazy or get nuclear, I went out to the piano, and this song just kind of poured out. We wound up getting married shortly thereafter, and the lead sheet of that song was the announcement for the wedding, with our picture embossed on it."

When Chicago gathered at the Caribou Ranch to record its seventh album in the fall of 1973, the initial intention was to do a jazz album. On his own, Pankow brought in another gorgeous ballad, though this time his subject matter went beyond romance. "I've Been Searchin 'So Long" was a song about finding myself," he says. "I just had to talk about who I was and what I was feeling at the time. The '70's was a time for soul-searching."

Cetera, who never claimed to be a Jazz musician, was discouraged about the original concept of the album, and also at his lack of participation as songwriter. Cetera's last-minute contribution to Chicago VII is one of the album's best-remembered songs, "Wishing You Were Here." "There's two people that I always wanted to be," Cetera confesses, "and that was a Beatle or a Beach Boy. I got to meet the Beach Boys at various times and got to be good friends with Carl Wilson." Cetera wrote the song in the style of the Beach Boys, who were at Caribou when it was to be recorded. Guercio, who had known the group since his backup days in the mid '60's, had recently taken over their management. Cetera asked the Beach Boys to sing on the bridge and chorus of "Wishing You Were Here." "They said, 'Yeah, we'd love to," be recalls. "So, I got to do the background harmonies with Carl and Dennis Wilson and Al Jardine. For a night, I was a Beach Boy."

As a result of the good vibrations between the members of both bands, it was agreed that a national tour would be fun and exciting for the bands and the audiences. The following summer, the Chicago-Beach Boys tour filled stadiums from coast to coast, nearly eclipsing the Rolling Stones, who were touring simultaneously.

Chicago VII was preceded by the February 1974 single release of "I've Been Searchin' So Long", which become the band's eighth Top 10 hit. "Call On Me" became their ninth, and "Wishing You Were Here" became their tenth, peaking at Number 9 on Cash Box, Number 11 on Billboard. The album was another chart topper. The year 1974 also marked the addition of an eighth member of Chicago, Brazilian percussionist Laudir De Oliveira, a former member of Sergio Mendez's Brazil '66. De Oliveira had first appeared on Chicago VI as a sideman.

Also in '74, Robert Lamm released a solo album called "Skinny Boy". Chicago began work on its next album August 1, 1974, at Caribou Ranch, and the results started to emerge in February 1975. Pankow wrote the sentimental "Old Days". "It's a memorabilia song, it's about my childhood," he says. "It touches on key phrases that, although they date me, are pretty right-on in terms of images of my childhood. 'The Howdy Doody Show' on television and collecting baseball cards and comic books." "Old Days" was a Top 5 hit when it was released as the second single from Chicago VIII, which appeared in March 1975.

The year 1975 marked an early commercial peak in Chicago's career, a year during which the band scored its fourth straight Number 1 album, a year when all its previous albums were back in the charts. Chicago's worldwide record sales for this single year were a staggering 20 million copies. The group returned with an all-new album in June 1976, when it released Chicago X. (Chicago IX had been a greatest hits collection.) The big hit from the album was a song that just barely made the final cut, Peter Cetera's "If You Leave Me Now". "That was one of those magical 'We need one more song (situations)," Cetera recalls.

"If You Leave Me Now" streaked to Number 1, Chicago's first Billboard singles chart topper. It also topped charts around the world. Chicago X won the band its first platinum record (the awards had only just been inaugurated that year), selling a million copies in three months. Afterward, the ballad style of "If You Leave Me Now" increasingly seemed to become the preferred style of Chicago's audience and radio listeners. "That drove me crazy," says Lamm. "I know it drove Terry crazy, because that isn't what we set out to be and it isn't how we heard ourselves."

By 1977, after eight relentless years of touring and recording, strain was beginning to show. "We'd cut down the touring from 300 dates to 250, down to 200, which is still a lot of days on the road," says Parazaider. "But let's face it, we were booming." In January, Chicago undertook another world tour, and the band was in Europe when they won a Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus for "If You Leave Me Now." They also took Grammys for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocals and Best Album Cover.

In September, Chicago XI was released, but the mounting tensions between Chicago and Guercio finally erupted. The split between group and manager had been a long time coming. Guercio had exerted a powerful control over the members of Chicago, especially in the early days, and as they became stars, it probably was inevitable that they would begin to chafe under his harsh leadership. "It started happening with the tenth record," says Parazaider. "He didn't want us to learn any of the production techniques. He'd go to sleep at nine o'clock, and we'd start producing the records ourselves.

"As I look back, I was much too hard on these guys," Guercio admits. "I felt a thoroughbred by committee is a goddamn mule. I totally manipulated them for my own ends as well as theirs, whether they understood them or not."

In the short term, little seemed changed. "Baby, What A Big Surprise" sailed into the Top 5, and Chicago XI was certified platinum the month after its release. But only a few months later, the band would be devastated by a terrible loss. On January 23, l978, Chicago guitarist and singer Terry Kath died from an accidental gunshot wound. "Terry Kath was a great talent" says Jim Guercio, who worked with him on a solo album that was never completed. "Hendrix idolized him. He was just totally committed to this band, and he could have been a monster (as a solo artist)." Kath's death devastated Chicago, and the band considered breaking up. A short time after Terry's death, "Take Me Back To Chicago," was released as a single.

If the band was going to continue, it would need a new guitarist, and auditions began in earnest in the spring of 1978. "We felt that we were being left behind by the new music," says Cetera, "and we thought we needed a young guitar player with long hair. We sat through I don't know how many guitar players, but I'm sure it was 30, 40, or 50 guitar players. Toward the end, Donnie Dacus showed up. He played a couple of songs right and with fire, and that's how he was in the group."

The band went to Miami's Criteria Studios with producer Phil Ramone, who had mixed many of their singles and television specials. "Hot Streets was a scary experience," says Pankow of the album even band members occasionally slip and called Chicago XII. "Guercio was no longer in the picture, and neither was Terry. But Phil Ramone believed in the band from the beginning. After recovering from the enormous tragedy of losing Terry, I think we did a damn good job." Perhaps the album's most notable song is the up-tempo "Alive Again," which was also the first single. "If you read between the lines, it's a tribute to Terry Kath's passing," says Pankow. "That's the first song we recorded subsequent to Terry's death. It's the band saying we're alive again, and Terry's looking down on us with a big smile."

To mark the new era, Chicago changed their album design. "Hot Streets", released in September 1978, was the first Chicago album on which a picture of the group was the dominant feature of the cover. "After the album came out, the record company did a survey," says Pankow, "and 90 percent of the people surveyed didn't give a shit about what we looked like, much to our chagrin. They wanted to see the logo. The music has always spoken for itself, and the logo has as well . It 's like Coca-Cola: When you see it, you know what it is," Hot Streets was certified platinum before the end of October, and produced two top 20 Singles in "Alive Again" and "No Tell Lover". "It got us over the letup," Parazaider says, "and we proved to ourselves we could go on and sell records."

The band went on the road to support the album and did a concert tour with a small orchestra conducted by Bill Conti, who had risen to fame as the Oscar-winning composer of the soundtrack to Sly Stallone's Rocky. Ultimately, Donnie Dacus didn't work out and left the band, though he remained through the 13th album. The personnel problem was compounded by a musical one: As the late '70s wore on, the sophisticated, jazz-rock, pop-oriented style of Chicago was being squeezed by disco on one side and punk/new wave on the other, each or them making the band seem unfashionable. Responding to pressure to change the sound, Chicago 13 , which was released in August 1979, contained the song "Street Player," which has a disco flavour. According to Parazaider, the album "hit the wall at 700,000 copies, a good sale for some, but very disappointing by Chicago's standards.

At this time, Chicago signed a new, multi-million dollar record contract with Columbia. "There was no way either party should have made that deal," says Lamm. "It created a lot of animosity at the company." After Chicago XIV suffered disappointing sales, Columbia bought the group out of the remainder of the contract and released "Greatest Hits, Volume II", which counted as the 15th album.

To replace Donate Dacus, Chicago had hired guitarist Chris Pinnick as a sideman. "Chris came closest to Terry's rhythmic approach," says Lamm. Laudir De Oliveira also departed the group at this point. In the fall of 1981, Chicago asked Bill Champlin, a noted Los Angeles session singer and musician, to join them. "They needed a little bit of guitar work," says Champlin, "and they needed somebody to sing Terry's stuff."

"Bill might come the closest to Terry's gutsy lead vocals," says Parazaider. Also a songwriter, he co-wrote "After The Love Has Gone," which was a hit for Earth, Wind & Fire and a Grammy R&B Song of the Year. He would win a second R&B Song of the Year Grammy for co-writing "Turn Your Love Around," which became a hit for George Benson just after he joined Chicago.

Champlin had worked closely with Canadian producer and songwriter David Foster, whose other clients had included Hall and Oates and the Average White Band. "A lot of people think Foster brought me into Chicago," Champlin notes, "and it's the other way around, I actually brought Foster into Chicago." Champlin knew Danny Seraphine, and Seraphine went to him for advice about Foster, who had been considered as a possible producer for the 14th album before the job went to Tom Dowd and was now being considered for the 16th album. "Danny called me and said, 'What do you think of David Foster as a producer?'," Champlin recalls. "I said, 'You'll probably end up rewriting a lot, but I think Foster would be great for you guys."

As Champlin had predicted, David Foster took a strong hand in the making of Chicago l6, co-writing eight of the album's ten songs, including "Hard To Say I'm Sorry," which became a worldwide Number 1 single when the album was released by Full Moon/Warner Brothers Records in June 1982. The album went into the Top Ten and sold a million copies.

"We had a resurgence then," remembers Parazaider. "I had a kid come up to me and say, "I have your first record, would you mind signing it?' This was somewhere in North Carolina. We were going on-stage, and I told her I would sign it after the show. And what she had was the Chicago 16 album. She had no idea about the others that came before it. The reality hit , we had gained another generation."

"It was a new career for us again," says Loughnane, "and I think also Warner Brothers liked being able to sell something that Columbia said wasn't going to be able to go. That kind of competition could only benefit us because they would work harder to make their company look better than the other company."

The next Chicago-Foster project, Chicago 17, released in May 1984, became the band's greatest seller. Such hits as "Stay The Night," "Hard Habit To Break," "You're The Inspiration," and "Along Comes A Woman" propelled the album past the six million mark and reaffirmed Chicago's status as one of America's top bands. They once again played sold-out concerts in North America and Asia.

But Chicago's renewed success pre-saged a new challenge when Peter Cetera, whose singing and songwriting on a series of romantic ballads had fuelled that popularity, decided to leave the group and launch a solo career after the 1985 summer tour. In an ironic twist, however, the beginning of his new solo act would lead to the successor who helped Chicago maintain and extend its success. "When Peter left, he stayed with Warner Bros., " explains Jason Scheff. "I had just signed a song publishing deal, and Michael Ostin at Warner Bros. called over to my publisher and said, "Do you have any songs for Peter's solo album and/or someone to collaborate with him for the album?' They said, 'Yeah, we just signed this new kid.' So, they sent the demos of the first three songs that I'd brought in, and the story that I have always heard is that Michael heard the voice and said, 'Wait a minute, this could be the guy we're looking for to replace Peter in Chicago.' I didn't know this was going on. I just got a phone call one day saying, 'We have heard your tape, and we think that you could be the guy to replace Cetera in Chicago. It was a pretty amazing phone call to get, at 23 years old ."

With Scheff in place, Chicago went into the studio with David Foster to make Chicago 18. The album emerged at the end of September 1986 as the band took to the road for a fall tour to introduce the new member. Chicago 18 proved to be a gold-selling success, and Scheff's acceptance by fans was cemented with the Top Ten status of the single "Will You Still Love Me?," on which he sang lead. It was the hit that finally convinced him that he belonged. "When I first joined the band, they put all of their confidence in me and never looked back," he says. "They invested in me as the future of the franchise. There were a lot of people who were sceptical. 'Will You Still Love Me?' was a big hit, and then I finally felt comfortable that I was in."

The next hurdle, Scheff notes, was to keep that success going. Working with producers Chas Sandford and Ron Nevison, Chicago recorded "19", released in June 1988. The album yielded three Top 10 hits, with "Look Away" becoming the fastest rising single in the band's history and hitting Number 1. It was, Loughnane notes, the first Chicago hit single in a long time not to be a ballad sung in a tenor voice; Bill Champlin sang lead. That should have broken the radio demand for ballads and allowed the band greater musical flexibility. Instead, says Loughnane, "People still didn't understand that that was Chicago! We would play that song live in concert, and you could see people going, 'what are they doing that song for? I didn't know they did this song. My God, that is them!' It didn't really translate to Chicago because of what had been."

"We had come to the tail end of this long great run that was really dominated by pop ballad songs," notes Scheff, "and coupled with that was the fact that two of the singles on l9 ("Look Away" and "I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love") were not even written by us.

In the summer of 1989, the Beach Boys and Chicago joined force once again for a memorable tour. Also, two greatest hits albums were released simultaneously in the U.S., Greatest Hits 1982-89 (counted as the 20th album), and in Europe, "The Heart of Chicago", which contained hits from both the Columbia and Warner years. The band entered the current decade with another hit single, Jason Scheff's "What Kind Of Man Would I Be," originally released on 19 and included on the new hits collection. This gave Chicago hit records an four consecutive decades.

The group faced another personnel change in 199O, when they parted ways with drummer Danny Seraphine.

Chicago Twenty One was released in January 1991. Again, the group drew on Diane Warren for two songs, "Explain It To My Heart" and "Chasin' The Wind," and they were released as singles. But this time they did not become big hits. The album marked the beginning of a resurgence of the Chicago horns as a driving force and a return to the composers within the band as the principal source. In a sense, through the album, Chicago was rediscovering where its heart lay, and that effort transcended commercial considerations. As Lamm says, "We considered the possibility that perhaps it was better to succeed or fall on our own merits." The same year, Chicago was honoured with its own star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

In 1993, Chicago began to work on a new album with producer Peter Wolf, who insisted the band prepare all the material themselves and work in a manner similar to the way they worked in their early years. Parazaider recalls: "Peter Wolf said to me, 'I want you to bring over your bass clarinet, your clarinet, all your saxes all your flutes, everything. We're going to use everything the way you used to use it in the old days,' and that was a very exciting thing for us."

The result was the still unreleased album "The Stone of Sisyphus". "That was a record that had to be made," says Parazaider. "Especially after all the proddings by Warner Brothers, with the success of all of the ballads that we had, this band had to go back into doing a band approach, band concept album, where the band lives with the music from the get-go, we're all involved in it, from the writing to throwing in our suggestions to rehearsing the stuff or whatever, and that's what we did with Sisyphus." Parazaider is unequivocal about the importance of the album to Chicago. "I think at that point, if that record wasn't done, the band wouldn't be together in the form that we see it," he says, "because we were frustrated that we weren't doing what we wanted to do, cranking out things that Warner Brothers, wanted us to do that sold. You can't look a gifthorse in the mouth, a hit is a hit is a hit. But there was other stuff for us to say, and that's where Sisyphus comes in."

Band members felt strongly that this was one of their finest albums, but their enthusiasm was not shared by their record label. "Warner Brothers didn't get the record," says Parazaider. "In fact, they disliked it so much, they figured maybe we should part ways, which we did. But the master tapes weren't burnt, because we believe in it, and I know you'll see that somewhere along the way. This thing will get released." Some of the songs from the album are already beginning to show up on international greatest hits albums such as "The Very Best Of Chicago" in Europe.

Chicago moved on to a new project, embracing an idea put forward by record executive John Kalodner, and recording "Night & Day (Big Band)", released in May 1995 on Giant Records. The album features standards associated with Glenn Miller ("In The Mood") and Duke Ellington ("Don't Get Around Much Anymore", "Sophisticated Lady" and "Take The A Train"), among others.

The association with Ellington helped convince band members to try the project, since it seemed to pay back a musical debt to the Duke. Back in the early '70's, Ellington had asked to have Chicago appear on his TV special, Duke Ellington: We Love You Madly, along with such august company as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, Peggy Lee, and Count Basie. After the show, Parazaider and Pankow went to meet Ellington, who was near the end of his illustrious career. "I said, "Mr. Ellington, it really was an honour to be asked to be on your show," Parazaider recalls, "and he looked at Jimmy and me, and he said , 'On the contrary young men, the honour is all mine because you're the next Duke Ellington's.' Jimmy and I were gassed to meet him and that he said that. We were going away, and I said, 'Yeah , right, now if we can make another hit record to pay the rent we'll be happy,' not thinking about the long haul. When the idea for the big band album presented itself, at first it got a lukewarm reaction by the band. Then Jimmy and I remembered this, and I thought, maybe this is what we were supposed to do in the scheme of our musical life. So, that was one of the reasons that we warmed up to the idea of it."

"It was a great musical experience, and that's what it's all about, in my mind," Loughnane concludes. "I think it should have been more popular than it has become, but it's still a great piece of music as far as I'm concerned, and I'll take that to the grave with me. I know we put everything we had into it, and it came out sounding great."

In 1995 Chicago once again faced the task of finding a new guitarist. The band scheduled two days of auditions to hear a select group of prospects. As it turned out, however, the new group member would be one who crashed the party. "They had a pretty firm list of guys that they were going to listen to," recalls Keith Howland. "l actually heard that Chicago was looking for a guitar player on the first day of the auditions through a friend of mine who happened to be working in the building where they were being held." Howland contacted the band's management only to be told that the audition was closed. They must not have heard anybody who satisfied them, because Howland got a call from Scheff that night saying they had extended a third day just to hear him. I went down, and I was the only guy to play that day," he recalls. "I was so nervous it was ridiculous, I played through a bunch of tunes with them, did some a cappella background vocals with Bill, Jason, and Robert. We finished up, I was packing up my gear. They all went into the hallway and were talking. Bill came walking back in and said , 'Hey, you want a gig ?'

In 1995, Chicago secured rights to its catalogue of recordings originally made for Columbia between 1969 and 1980. That catalogue has now been reissued on the group's "Chicago Records" label, which also has released solo efforts by the band members as well as other projects. "We are Chicago Records, which means we can look for talent, we can look for other catalogs to put out on our record company," says Parazaider. "We've got some interesting things coming up."

The likely next Chicago recording to be released will be its "Ultimate Greatest Hits". Over the years, various hits compilations have come out, but none of the American ones has contained the band's hits from the '60's to the '90's. The Ultimate Greatest Hits will rectify that and also bring Chicago's story up to date. "It's something that I think we'll start working on come the fall after we get done with our summer touring," says Parazaider. "We're excited to put a greatest hits compilation together that's never been done before and also to go in and put a couple of new tunes down, which will be a statement of where we are now. We're talking about a Christmas release, or maybe the beginning of next year."

Today, decades after they gathered at Parazaider's apartment, the members of Chicago continue the legacy of music they inherited from their parents and their teachers and that they have brought to millions of fans. Recently, the band returned to their hometown to appear on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.

People have always wondered about the name "Chicago." One simple sentence from the liner notes of the very first album eliminates any question as to their identity. "If you must call them something, speak of the city where all save one were born, where all of them were schooled and bred. Call them "Chicago"

The Buckinghams formed in 1965 when Carl Giammarese and Nick Fortuna of The Centuries joined up with Jon Jon Poulos and Dennis Tufano of The Pulsations. After adding keyboard player Dennis Miccoli, the group won a 'Battle of the Bands' for a Chicago TV show called All Time Hits and became regulars on the show for 14 weeks. The British invasion was happening at that time and the TV show wanted the band to have a more British sounding name. A security guard that worked for the TV station suggested the name The Buckinghams.

Landing a contract with Chicago's USA Records in 1966, the group was sent to Chess studios where they were paired with producer Dan Belloc. Their first releases were all cover versions of other artists songs: James Brown's "I'll Go Crazy", the Beatles' "I Call Your Name" and the Hollies' "I've Been Wrong Before." While these songs did well in the Chicago area, it took the wistful, Jim Holvay written, "Kind of a Drag" to break the group nationally. The song featured the powerful vocals of Dennis Tufano and a punchy, soul-styled horn section that was the brainchild of James Guercio, who would later go on to produce the band Chicago. Soon after "Kind Of A Drag" was recorded, Dennis Miccoli was replaced by Marty Grebb, the keyboard player from the Chicago folk-rock band The Exceptions.

In just a few weeks, the Buckinghams had a million-selling, chart-topper on their hands. "Kind of a Drag" did for The Buckinghams what no other act seemed to be able to do at that time...knock the Monkees' monster hit "I'm A Believer" out of the #1 spot.

After the demise of USA Records, the Buckinghams signed with Columbia Records and followed "Kind Of A Drag" with a cover version of Lloyd Price's, "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" that quickly stalled at number 36. Columbia wasted no time in going back to the formula that worked so well the first time out, releasing another song co-written by Jim Holvay along with Gary Beisbier called "Don't You Care". That effort secured another top ten hit, when it reached number 6 on the Billboard chart. Not all of their singles had quite as much success though, as "Back In Love Again" topped out at #32.

Cashing in on a good thing, The Buckinghams appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Jerry Lewis Show, American Bandstand, The Smothers Brothers, Entertainment Tonight, P.M. Magazine, and Classic Rock with Wolfman Jack. Between appearances, the band recorded a vocal adaptation of Cannonball Adderley's jazz standard "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy," that soared to number 5.

Still in 1967, Columbia kept pushing out Buckingham singles and a Holvay / Beisbier / Guercio composition called "Susan" made it up to number 11, while "Hey Baby" (They're Playin' Our Song) went to number 12.

Despite selling millions of records and being voted "The Most Listened-To Band of 1967" by Billboard Magazine, the band's Fortunas began to decline in 1968. Their cleverly titled album, "In One Ear and Gone Tomorrow" seemed to be a forecast of things to come, as the LP couldn't produce a hit single. Several line-up changes only undermined their sound and by late 1969, The Buckinghams had decided to pack it in.

Carl Giammarese and Dennis Tufano continued working as an acoustic duo. Work was tough to find and Chicago area clubs were not interested. A demo tape for Reprise Records was turned down. Jon Poulos had started to manage local bands and tried to help. Giammarese and Tufano recorded an entire album demo for Poulos to promote, but nobody wanted to sign them. From there the pair contacted producer Jack Richardson, who worked with The Guess Who. Richardson brought in members of Poco as studio musicians and they laid down three promotional tracks. Poulos sent the demo to every major label, but got no response. He finally contacted former Mamas and Papas producer Lou Adler, who now had his own custom label, Ode Records. Two days after receiving the tape, Adler called to say that he liked the sound and Giammarese and Tufano flew to Los Angeles to audition live. Adler was even more impressed and signed them.

A self-titled Tufano - Giammarese album was released on Ode in 1973 and the first single, "Music Everywhere" managed to climb to #68 on Billboard's Hot 100. A second tune called "Rise Up" was issued the same year, but did not chart. To promote the album, Tufano and Giammarese went out on a two month, nine state promotional tour with Cheech & Chong.

Four tracks for a second album for Ode had been finished when Lou Adler took sick and had to keep leaving the sessions. A discouraged Giammarese decided he'd had enough and began doing session work. During this period, Adler's health declined to a point where he could not make records anymore, but eventually, the second album, titled "The Tufano & Giammarese Band" came together. When the subject of a third album came up, Adler said he will not do another unless he had assurance that Giammarese would stick around for the whole project. To get back on track, the pair assembled a new band, worked clubs and learned new songs. Lou Adler agreed to produce a third LP called "The Other Side". By now Ode was being distributed by Epic Records. Adler hired Hank Cicalo as an engineer and Tom Scott to arrange. On the first day of recording, Adler announced 'I cannot produce anymore, I lost my ear. I want to make movies.' Tom Scott and Hank Cicalo became the producers. The record was finished and made it into record stores, but one week later, Adler cut off the distribution deal with Epic. He wanted to be distributed by Columbia instead. Adler re-released the album, but Columbia had little interest and failed to promote it.

In 1980 The Buckinghams were invited to do a reunion by Chicago radio station WLS. Marty Grebb had to decline because he was working with Leon Russell. 32 year old Jon Jon Poulos died of drug-related causes earlier in the year. It had been eleven years since anyone had seen The Buckinghams play, but after they rehearsed, the pulled off three shows like they had never been apart. The exposure brought a lot of other offers to appear, but Tufano lived in Los Angeles and had other commitments. Carl Giammarese and Nick Fortuna however, decided to reunite as The Buckinghams.

The band toured extensively as a nostalgia act with Giammarese and Fortuna and released new recordings, the album "A Matter Of Time" and the single "Veronica" in 1985 for Red Label records. They were also a part of the highly successful Happy Together Tour which featured The Turtles, The Grass Roots and Gary Lewis. The tour was consistently one of the Top 10 grossing tours.

During the '80s and 90s, Tufano was not only involved in acting, but joined up with Elton John's songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin in a band called Farm Dogs. An album by Farm Dogs, "Last Stand In Open Country" was released in July, 1996 on Discovery Records.

The Buckinghams continued to be a very impressive band, playing festivals, concerts, casinos, cruises, and corporate dates around the world as interest in 60's hits and the bands that made them famous continued. Their clean and tight musical ability combined with trademark vocals made them a popular draw.

More recently, the latest edition of The Buckinghams released some new recordings that include, 1998's "Terra Firma" and "Made In Chicago" in 2001. In October, 2004, The Buckinghams sang the national anthem at Comiskey Park in Chicago before game one of the American Baseball League playoffs. They also toured the country with the "Solid Gold Sixties Tour" along with Tommy James, The Turtles, The Grass Roots, Paul Revere and the Raiders and Gary Puckett.

Singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett has translated his easy-going Gulf Coast persona into more than just a successful recording career -- he has expanded into clothing, nightclubs, and literature. But the basis of the business empire that keeps him on the Fortune magazine list of highest-earning entertainers is his music.

Buffett was born on Christmas Day on the shores of the Gulf Coast in Pascagoula, Mississippi and later moved to Mobile, Alabama where he was raised. This is where he developed his early Cajun influences and appreciation for country/folk music. The Gulf Coast is also where Jimmy developed his love for the sea and sailing, largely due to the influences of his grandfather.

Jimmy attended Auburn University, and later received a B.S. in History from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1969.

Jimmy's own words describe his early days:
"I got into music basically to meet girls, no doubt about it. Women have always been an influence on my music, good and bad. It looked like the greatest job in the world. I was in college at the time, a freshman at Auburn University. I was a shy, awkward kid from Mobile, kind of a wallflower. My roommate had a guitar, and even though he knew only three chords, he always seemed to be the center of attention with women. I said, 'Teach me those chords'."

So I learned the guitar and started hanging around folk clubs, watching the bands. They all had big shiny Martin guitars; I would've given my right arm for a Martin guitar. And the women -- all the time women -- were hanging around the band. I thought: this is the job for me"

Before he signed his first record contract in 1970, Jimmy worked as a writer for Billboard Magazine in Nashville, Tennessee.

He released one album for Barnaby Records, called "Down to Earth" in 1970, the single from which, a socially conscious song called, "The Christian," suggested he might be more at home protesting in Greenwich Village. Barnaby "lost" his second album, "High Cumberland Jubilee", though they would find it and release it after he became successful. Instead, he moved to Key West, FL, where he gradually evolved the beach bum character and tropical folk-rock style that would endear him to millions.

Jimmy tells the story:
"I was always a lover of the lyrical song, and I think the people who influenced me in those days typified my upbringing. I grew up in Mobile, and my relatives on my grandmother's side were a kind of Cajun, Indian, wild people from that area. My grandfather was a sailing-ship captain who migrated from Nova Scotia. So it was a gumbo type of musical experience. I'd listen to the radio from New Orleans -- Benny Spellman, Irma Thomas, and great old black New Orleans artists -- which is contrary to what most people think. They assume if you come from Alabama, you listen to country music. I didn't really like it much; all my early influences were out of New Orleans".

"I first started playing in folk clubs, and I drew on all this great Gulf Coast, New Orleans, black input. I was also listening to people like Gordon Lightfoot and Joni Mitchell, who were great writers above everything else. I wanted to write clever, good songs like those people".

"I was in Nashville in 1971. I'd been turned down by 26 record labels and couldn't get songs published. I had wrecked my first wife's car, and I had no alternative, I thought, but to look toward warmer climates. So I took an expired Diner's Club card, held my thumb over the expiration date, went to the TWA counter, and bought a ticket to Miami. I was supposed to have a job at a little coffee house called the Flip, the "in" place for folkies in south Florida then. At any rate, I got to Miami, and of course there was no job. I was in Florida, with no job, and I was broke. Fortunately my old friend Jerry Jeff Walker had a house there and took me in. So I lived in Coconut Grove for about 6 months and worked the folk circuit. I had always wanted to go to Key West. Watching Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart in Key Largo was the catalyst that sent me farther South. So we got into Jerry Jeff's '47 Packard and took the old overseas highway to Key West. We got there sometime in November; the temperature was about 85 degrees, there was a sailboat race going on, I found a bar, and the rest is history".

Signing to ABC-Dunhill Records, Buffett achieved notoriety but not much else with his second (released) album, White Sport Coat & a Pink Crustacean (1973), which featured a song called, "Why Don't We Get Drunk" ("... and screw?," goes the chorus).

Buffett revealed a more thoughtful side on "Living & Dying in 3/4 Time" (1974), with its song of marital separation "Come Monday", his first singles-chart entry.

"I was in Europe on a film documentary, shopping in a department store in London, when I heard Come Monday over the loudspeaker. I thought I'd better call home and see what was happening, and by that time it was #10 or so. I had to stay in Europe for three more months, yet everything had taken off in the U.S."

But it took the Top Ten song "Margaritaville" and the album in which it was featured, "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" (1977), to capture Buffett's tropical worldview and, for a while, turn him into a Pop star. He would later admit that he wrote that million selling tune in about six minutes. The next release, the title track from the album, sounded so much like Margaritaville that it received little air-play and follow-ups got even less. Still, Buffett's beach bum image made fans flock to his concerts and he became a top draw.

By the start of the '80s, Buffett's yearly albums had stopped going gold, and he briefly tried the Country market again. But by the middle of the decade, it was his yearly summer tours that were filling his bank account, as a steadily growing core of Sun Belt fans he dubbed "Parrotheads" made his concerts into Mardi Gras-like affairs. Buffett launched his Margaritaville line of clothes and opened the first of his Margaritaville clubs in Key West. He also turned to fiction writing, landing on the book bestseller lists. He also found time for his passion of flying, purchasing his own sea-plane and taking off in an F-14 Tomcat from the deck of an air-craft carrier.

His recording career, meanwhile, languished, though a hits compilation called "Songs You Know By Heart", sold millions, a 1990 live album, "Feeding Frenzy", went gold, and a 1992 box-set retrospective, "Boats, Beaches, Bars & Ballads", became one of the bestselling box sets ever.

Buffett finally got around to making a new album in 1994, when "Fruitcakes" became one of his fastest-selling records, reaching platinum status. The title track received plenty of radio air-play and the LP entered Billboard's Top 200 album chart at number 5. It was followed in 1995 by "Barometer Soup", which entered the charts at number 6 and went gold (with some help from The Weather Channel even), and the number 4 platinum selling "Banana Wind" in 1996, from which he got airplay with a radio single of James Taylor's "Mexico". The following year, Buffett began working on a musical adaptation of Herman Wouk's novel Don't Stop the Carnival with the author himself. After Broadway producers expressed little interest, the production ran for six weeks in Miami during 1997. In spring of 1998, Buffett released "Don't Stop The Carnival", an album based on the book and the play. He began mulling over the idea of taking the play on the road (it went to Miami and the Bahamas). He also released another book - the number one selling A Pirate Looks At Fifty.

1999 brought more successful live shows and the release of two new albums, "Beach House On the Moon" and "Buffett Live - Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays", both of which went gold.

March of 2002 saw the release of "Far Side of the World", Buffett's first studio album for his new self-run label, Mailboat Records. In mid 2003 a double-album hits compilation "Meet Me In Margaritaville" was released and his 2003 Tiki Time Tour shows were recorded and released on Mailboat. Amidst the summer tour was a number one single with Alan Jackson on "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" - Buffett's first ever number one in music. The Tiki Time Tour ended in January of 2004 in Hawaii (the live album and DVD was released through Mailboat in the fall of 2004 and was released nation wide in the spring of 2005 with the same DVD from the two shows). In December, before the Hawaii shows, he recorded a new record in Key West with a group of country stars and various well respected musicians. Originally called Conchy Tonk , (and later changed to) "License To Chill" debuted at number one on the Billboard LP chart in mid-July of 2004 - Jimmy's first ever number one album. It spun off two Top Ten videos on CMT - the Hank Williams cover of "Hey Good Lookin'" and the Buffett / Martina McBride duet "Trip Around The Sun". Jimmy was even featured in Rolling Stone - the summer of 2004 was truly Buffett's summer. Part of the Chill tour was playing Fenway Park in Boston.

Just in time for Christmas of 2004, he released another book, a continuation of the travels of Tully Mars (from Tales From Margaritaville). A Salty Piece of Land did not get to number one but it did sell very well. Its first printing run included a song called "A Salty Piece Of Land" that was a leftover from the Conchy Tonk / License To Chill sessions.

A Salty Piece Of Land 2005 Summer Tour saw Jimmy playing in football stadiums (Pittsburgh) and another baseball stadium (Wrigley in Chicago for two nights) along with the usual ampitheatres.

In February, 2006, Buffett announced that he would take the summer off from touring. "I'm kinda taking it easy now," he said in a conversation with Radio Margaritaville DJ Miles Hampton. "It's the last summer with my kids before they go off to boarding school, so I'm gonna travel with them and work the spring and the fall. I don't want to do much right now." Buffett also put in time at his Shrimp Boat Studios in Key West, Florida, recording the follow-up to 2004's "License to Chill", called "Take The Weather With You", which was released in August of '06.

Jimmy Buffett remains one of the hottest concert draws ever, playing sold out shows to legions of "Parrot Heads" where ever he goes. His 2007 touring schedule was cut down to about 25 shows, in part because he is also the head of a massive empire that includes recording, distribution, publishing, merchandising and concerts, as well as his best selling novels, internet radio, movie and stage productions, two restaurant chains, a brewery and casino interests.

In the latter months of 1967, four shaggy wannabe's congregated in the Southern UK town of Luton, Bedfordshire. From the debris of the disillusioned and disintegrated John Evan Band and McGregor's Engine, the naïve, untutored talents of Ian Anderson, Mick Abrahams, Glenn Cornick and Clive Bunker formed the original Jethro Tull line-up.

This early combo had many different names which usually changed every week in order to get re-booked in the clubs where they aspired to find fame and fortune. Their agent, who had studied history at college, came up with the name Jethro Tull (an eighteenth century English agricultural pioneer, who invented the seed drill).

As the group became tighter, they landed the job of house band at London's famous Marquee club and made their recording debut in March of 1968 with "Sunshine Day". This commercially minded single, erroneously credited to Jethro Toe, merely hinted at developments about to unfold.

By the spring of '68, they had built a following as the new face of the blues-based British underground music scene. Lines stretched around the block on a Thursday night when they performed at the Marquee. Ian Anderson would typically join the line as if to buy a ticket himself, wearing the shabby hand-me-down overcoat which was to become his trademark for the next few years. Often, he would be seen with a Woolworth's carrier bag containing flute , harmonicas, alarm clock and hot water bottle, in strange precursor role of the Aqualung/tramp persona. His exaggerated gestures, long, wiry hair, ragged coat and distinctive, one-legged stance cultivated a compulsive stage personality to the extent that, for many spectators, Jethro Tull was the name of this extroverted frontman and the other musicians merely his sidemen.

Following appearances in Hyde Park and at the Sunbury Jazz and Blues Festival in the summer of '68, the band gained wider public recognition with the release of their first album "This Was" which, while paying homage to the blues heritage which they all revered, hinted at the broader influences which were to become apparent in the post-Mick Abrahams times to follow.

After the personal and musical differences which marked the then acrimonious separation, Mick Abrahams left to form the briefly successful Blodwyn Pig. The remaining Tull members embarked, with the then unproven addition of replacement Martin Barre, on the recording of the landmark album "Stand Up" at the beginning of 1969.

Happily, the new record proved to be a great success, and lead the way to new opportunities in Europe and the USA. Ian Anderson's music writing came of age with this album and the influences of classical, jazz, folk and ethnic music forms made the eclectic result an early landmark for the band.

After achieving the position of Number one album in the UK charts, Tull, initially in the shadow of Led Zeppelin and others, began the explosive ascent to the lofty heights of U.S. stardom, culminating during the next three years in the cover stories of Time and Rolling Stone magazines, five nights at the Forum in Los Angeles and three nights at Madison Square Gardens, New York.

A few hit singles livened up the band's career, among them, "Living in the Past", written during the first U.S. tour early in 1969, to keep warm the reputation back home in the UK.

However, it was the albums as a whole which provided the strength for the developing Jethro Tull, containing as they did, not one, but usually several classic rock radio-friendly tracks to keep the band's profile high between concert tours and new releases.

"Benefit", "Aqualung", and the so-called concept albums "Thick As A Brick" and "A Passion Play" confirmed the progressive rock tag which complemented other terms like "Art-rock", "Blues-rock", "Folk-rock", and "Hard-rock", depending on the critics' personal views of the often-complex musical thought trains of flautist and singer, Ian Anderson.

Jeffrey Hammond replaced Glenn Cornick on bass, Barriemore Barlow took over the drum chair from Clive Bunker, and the addition of old school chum, John Evan on piano, made easier the transition from the blues band of '68 to the band of the mid-seventies who sounded like...well, just sounded like Jethro Tull.

The first rock act since the Beatles to perform at Shea Stadium, New York, Tull laid claim to the live concert throne in North America. Not without its share of critical abuse, Tull pushed on with difficult and sometimes controversial themes, often falling into a knowing self-parody and employing humour to lighten up the occasionally bombastic and overly serious subject matter.

With two number one albums in the USA and other world-wide chart and sales success behind them, the band began to remove itself from the more commercially-driven side of recording and touring. Through the latter 70's and into the 80's, they produced several records and tours which, although not replicating their earlier numerical successes, proved throughout the world the enduring artistic credibility of a band continually able to reinvent itself.

"Warchild", "Too Old to Rock and Roll: Too Young to Die", "Minstrel in the Gallery", "Songs from the Wood", and "Heavy Horses" saw the popularity of the band extend into parts of the world where rock music had not before been encouraged and the Tull legend from Buenos Aires to Budapest took root, eventually to be rewarded by the many tours in places where other acts feared, or simply did not care, to tread.

At various times, David Palmer, John Glascock, Dave Pegg, drummer Doane Perry, and more recently, Andrew Giddings on keyboards and bassist Jonathan Noyce, have brought their unique and valuable contributions to the line-up to join the ever-ready mainstay, guitarist Martin Barre who, like Anderson himself, provided the continuity and legacy of the earlier years.

The loyalty of the long-standing fans and the ongoing enlistment of new converts were to ensure the survival of Tull into the eighties and nineties with "Crest of a Knave" ('87) and "Roots to Branches" ('95) being highlights of those decades, together with the Ian Anderson solo flute album "Divinities" providing the first Billboard Magazine number one chart record since 1973.

With 60 million albums sold and over 2500 concerts played in 40 countries, the band continued to record and perform live, albeit on a lesser scale, using a nucleus of Anderson, Barre and Pegg. "Catfish Rising" in 1991, although a disappointing album, was a return to their blues roots. "Roots To Branches" was a return to the standard Tull progressive rock album, full of complicated time changes, and fiddly new age and Arabian intros and codas.

In his time away from the band, Ian Anderson also became a renowned entrepreneur, owning tracts of land on the west coast of Scotland and the highly successful Strathaird Salmon processing plant.

In 2004 and 2005, Jethro Tull were still touring all across the globe.

One of Britain's most consistently successful groups of the seventies and eighties began life as a glam rock unit in 1968, when Brian May and Tim Staffell, both students at Imperial College, decided they wanted to form a band. Brian placed an advertisement on the college notice board for a "Ginger Baker type" drummer, and a young medical student named Roger Taylor auditioned and got the job. They called the group "Smile". The band was signed to Mercury Records in 1969, and had their first experience in a recording studio in Trident Studios that year. Staffell had been at Ealing College of Art with Freddie Bulsara, and introduced him to the band.

When "Smile" decided to call it a day in 1970, Staffell went off to join a band called "Humpy Bong", (featuring former Bee Gees drummer Colin Petersen) and Freddie left his band "Wreckage" to join up with Brian and Roger. Freddie not only legally changed his name to "Mercury", he also changed the band's name to "Queen". John Deacon was asked to audition as their bass player (they had three temporary ones so far in their short history), and in February 1971, Deacon signed on as the fourth member of Queen.

The band rehearsed tirelessly and played several small gigs at Imperial College. Eventually, they were offered the chance to 'test' a new recording studio called "De Lane Lea". In return for trying out the new equipment, they could also make free demo tapes. The demos went well enough that they signed a recording contract and publishing and management agreements with Trident in 1972. They were paid a weekly salary of just £60, and were given time in the studio during off peak hours, to record.

Soon after the failed single, 'Keep Yourself Alive', they issued a self-titled album, which was an interesting fusion of 70s glam and late 60s heavy rock (it had been preceded by a Mercury 'solo' single, a cover of the Beach Boys' 'I Can Hear Music', credited to Larry Lurex). Queen toured extensively and recorded a second album, which fulfilled their early promise by reaching the UK Top 5. Soon afterwards, 'Seven Seas Of Rhye' gave them their first hit single (UK number 10), while "Sheer Heart Attack" consolidated their commercial standing by reaching number 2 in the UK album charts.

In January 1975, Queen left for the USA on their very first headlining tour. Quite a few shows on that tour had to be cancelled, as Freddie had developed a severe throat problem, but he soldiered on and performed as many as possible, although doctors had advised him against it. Also in January 1975, Queen engaged the services of a music business lawyer, Jim Beach, to negotiate them out of their Trident agreements, as Trident were no longer being as supportive and the band were unhappy with the situation.

As fan support grew, the concert scenes where reminiscent of Beatlemania in the sixties, as Queen's live act was embodied in the outrageous theatrics of the satin-clad Mercury, who was swiftly emerging as one of rock's most notable showmen. In May of '75, the single "Killer Queen" reached number five in the U.S. and number one in the U.K.

After touring the Far East, they entered the studio with their producer Roy Thomas Baker and completed the epic "Bohemian Rhapsody", in which Mercury succeeded in transforming a seven-minute single into a mini-opera. The track dominated the charts in the UK, remaining at number 1 for an astonishing nine weeks. The power of the single was reinforced by an elaborate video production, highly innovative for its period and later much copied by other acts.

The follow up album, "A Night At The Opera", was, at the time, one of the most expensive ever recorded, and when it was released in November 1975, it was a massive hit, and gave them their first platinum album. Freddie had designed a band logo for the "Queen" album, which was re-worked and used as the cover for "Night At The Opera". The now-famous 'crest' features the band's star signs - two fairies for Virgo, a crab for Cancer and two lions for the two Leos.

"A Day At The Races" continued the hit streak, while the catchy "Somebody To Love" and "We Are The Champions", both reached number 2 in the UK. Although Queen seemed in danger of being stereotyped as over-produced glam rockers, they successfully brought variety to their singles output with a '50s rock 'n' roll style single called "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and the disco-influenced "Another One Bites The Dust" (both, U.S. number 1 hits). Despite this stylistic diversity, each Queen single seemed destined to become an anthem, as evidenced by the continued use of many of their songs at U.S. sporting venues, especially "We Are The Champions". Meanwhile, "The Game" gave Queen their first U.S. number 1 album in July, 1980. The group's soundtrack for the movie 'Flash Gordon' was another success, but was cited by many critics as typical of their pretentious approach. By the close of 1981, Queen were back at number 1 in the UK for the first time since 'Bohemian Rhapsody' with 'Under Pressure' (a collaboration with David Bowie ).

After a flurry of solo ventures, the group returned in 1984 with the satirical 'Radio Gaga' (UK number 2), followed by 'I Want To Break Free'. A performance at 1985's Live Aid displayed the group at their very best.

Queen's record output lessened during the late 80s, as the members concentrated on other interests. The band released their sixteenth album on May 22nd 1989, entitled "The Miracle". It entered the UK chart at Number One and went on to become a massive worldwide success, reaching Number One in most European countries.

The space between releases did not affect the group's popularity, as was proven in 1991 when 'Innuendo' gave them their third UK number one, and the album of the same name also topped the UK charts. By this time they had become an institution. Faultless musicianship, held together by May's guitar virtuosity and the spectacular Mercury, made Queen one of the great theatrical rock acts.

On November 23rd, 1991, Freddie announced to the world that he had AIDS. The very next day, his fight was over, and he died peacefully at his home surrounded by friends and family. The music world was in shock. Freddie had kept his illness very private, and only those closest to him had been aware of just how close to the end he really was. Fans from all over the world sent flowers and cards, and many even travelled to London to be at Freddie's house. A quiet family cremation service was held three days after his death, conducted in the Zoroastrian faith that Freddie's parents followed so strictly.

'Bohemian Rhapsody' was immediately re-issued to raise money for AIDS research projects, and soared to the top of the British charts. The song also climbed to U.S. number 2 in March 1992, after being featured in the movie "Wayne's World" (it had originally reached number 9 in January 1976). A memorial concert for Mercury took place at London's Wembley Stadium on May 20 1992, featuring an array of stars including Liza Minnelli, Elton John, Guns N'Roses, George Michael, David Bowie and Annie Lennox.

Even though Freddie was gone, Queen never announced an official break-up, so it was with nervous anticipation that a new Queen album called "Made In Heaven", was issued in 1995. Freddie Mercury's vocals were recorded during his last year while at home in Switzerland, and the rest of the band then filled in the instruments. While Mercury must be applauded for the way he carried his illness with great dignity, it is fair to say that May, Taylor and Deacon performed wonders in crafting an album from slightly inferior material. The album carries a dedication to the 'immortal spirit of Freddie Mercury', in recognition of his request that the material be completed and be heard by the public.

While "Made In Heaven" will be the last original Queen album, there is no doubt that the future will see further projects from Roger, John and Brian. To date, Brian May's solo career has enjoyed the highest profile, while Roger Taylor went on to work with his band called The Cross.

In November, 2006, The Official UK Charts Company released a list of the 100 best-selling albums of all time in the UK. Topping the list was the 1981 release, "Queen's Greatest Hits".