Rock, Jazz, Blues, Soul:
Chicago Transit Authority at 50

| published June 7, 2019 |

By Thursday Review editors

The year 1969 was—on the whole—a very good year for rock and roll music, one of its best. Among its album release highlights: The Who’s Tommy; The Rolling Stones’ Let it Bleed; the self-titled The Velvet Underground (the band’s third studio album); stunning debut albums by King Crimson, Led Zeppelin, and The Flying Burrito Brothers; dazzling second albums by Creedence Clearwater Revival and Isaac Hayes; and The Grateful Dead’s wildly experimental Aoxomoxoa, reported to be the first major album using then-cutting edge 16-track recording tools. 1969 also produced nothing less than Abbey Road, arguably The Beatles most famous recording—perhaps second only to Sgt. Pepper—and their final studio achievement before their break-up.

If Led Zeppelin’s self-titled debut was the decisive invention of heavy metal, as most historians and critics agree, if King Crimson’s eponymously titled album was the starting point of “progressive” rock, and if The Flying Burrito Brothers country-rock-folk fusion was a harbinger of the later (and more iconic California blend) success of The Eagles, then 1969 also produced the first major attempt to fuse hard rock with full-blown jazz.

Recorded in the span of only a few days in New York City in a frigid late January, Chicago‘s debut album, self-titled for that first musical season as The Chicago Transit Authority, immediately broke ground into a sound which would not only define a band soon thereafter called simply Chicago, but also set in place a signature sound which would remain a more-or-less permanent trademark of the group: a hard fusion of fast-paced heavy guitar rock and roll with acid rhythm and blues, big city soul, emphatic jazz layers of brass and woodwinds, and even a hint of classical. Though the band’s personnel would famously change over time, and the group’s sound periodically evolve to suit the musical moods of each era, that signature style and tone would remain intact, and cast a wide influence over rock and roll for generations.

The album Chicago Transit Authority, released in April of 1969, staggered and stammered at first on the charts, and its various singles were seemingly sluggish to move upward on pop radio airplay. The album was something of a risk for Columbia/CBS: it was the first time an unknown group had ever debuted with a double album. Failure to sell enough copies would have created a deep setback for Columbia Records, and may have spelled doom for the fledgling band with the unusual sound. But the execs at CBS also saw something reliable: the rock jazz fusion band Blood, Sweat & Tears had—only a month earlier—proven the power of going into the recording studio to meld a variety of sounds into a successful album. But where Blood, Sweat & Tears’ second album was a carefully crafted and tightly-knit one-disc deal, Chicago’s sprawling double album was something risky indeed.

Still, the music was infectious enough for the album oriented listeners, and the prodigious strength of the group’s writing and recording pace—Chicago released one new album every year from 1969 to 1988—meant that sales of the first record remained robust almost continually for a decade. In addition, music critics of all stripes took notice of the band’s unique sound and singular power. Chicago Transit Authority won a Grammy for Best New Artist of the Year in 1969.

That debut album managed to remain on the Billboard charts for an impressive 171 weeks, setting an industry record which would remain intact until Pink Floyd broke it with 1973’s Dark Side of the Moon.

But the fledgling jazz-rock-blues fusion band had a few problems right out of the starting gate. Even before their Grammy award could be received, and while the group was touring and promoting their new music, the band was slammed with legal action by the “real” Chicago Transit Authority—the City of Chicago agency responsible for commuter trains and buses—for copyright and trademark infringement. The municipal agency was not amused by the wholesale appropriation of its name by a rock and roll band. The case was easily resolved, however, even before it made its way into a courtroom, and band members decided to drop the “transit authority” part of their name and become simply Chicago.

At least two singles were released from that debut album the same year it was released: “Questions 67 and 68” in mid-summer 1969, followed a few months later by “Beginnings.” Both singles—at first—performed only modestly on the Billboard charts despite the group’s good critical reviews and musical press accolades. The album also sustained itself through massive amounts of radio airplay on the album-oriented radio circuit, where “singles” were not as important as the loyalty of listeners willing to come back again and again to hear alternate songs from the new group with the heavy infusion of jazz and the classical undertones. Chicago’s signature sound helped lure this kind of rock and roll fan—with a vengeance.

So the album lumbered forward slowly and steadily, but remaining stubbornly on the charts. One year later, Columbia/CBS released a third single, “Does Anybody Really Know What Time it Is?” It was an instant hit. That single became the driving force behind another potent surge in sales, creating additional momentum for the album and sustaining it until yet another single, “I’m a Man” (written by Steve Winwood and Jimmy Miller), was released in 1971, almost 20 months after the album’s first appearance.

All of the album’s twelve songs have that unique power to be at once dazzlingly atmospheric—there are few songs more evocative of the late 1960s than “Does Anybody Really Know What Time it Is?” and “I’m a Man”—as well as impressively fresh and innovative, even by today’s standards. The jazz-rock-soul combination thing has been done may times in the intervening decades (scores of albums by Chicago not included), but it had never been done so completely and so intensely before Chicago Transit Authority in 1969, aside from the aforementioned Blood, Sweat & Tears. In particular, the album version of “I’m a Man” is diverse in its style, to say the least—the first and third segments pure hard rock, the second (or middle section) a raw freeform jazz percussion interlude with slow layers of electric guitar and vocalizing. And “Does Anybody Really Know What Time it Is?” immersed music lovers with a heavy backdrop of unrelenting brass—Walter Parazaider on tenor sax, Lee Loughnane on trumpet, and James Pankow on trombone—a song which became so closely related to the Chicago trademark sound that it remained the group’s signature tune until “Saturday in the Park” came along five years later.

Chicago’s debut album had so much staying power that it remained viable and on the charts—with singles still being released—long after the release of Chicago II in January 1970, an even more massive double album which included the radio hits “Make Me Smile” and “25 or 6 to 4.”

The strength of the debut—coupled with the strong success of the next two or three albums—established Chicago’s upward trajectory for the remainder of the 1970s and beyond, propelling the band into something close to super-group status and fueling it as a live concert attraction throughout the 1980s and 90s. Chicago Transit Authority also remains one of those paradoxes of record sales: like Bruce Springsteen’s Greetings From Asbury Park NJ, which had only meager success on the charts and in record stores in its first year or two, Chicago’s debut—despite sluggish movement at first—resonated among not only critics and reviewers but also among the word-of-mouth rock music audiences, a mainstream subset open to embracing collaborative, experimental, or unusual fusion sounds in the purer realms of R&B and rock.

Related Thursday Review articles:

The Cars: A Look Back at Their Debut 40 Years Later; R. Alan Clanton; Thursday Review; August 3, 2018.

A Splendid Time is Guaranteed for All: Sgt. Pepper at 50; Kevin Robbie and Alan Clanton; Thursday Review; June 14, 2017.