Chicago XI (1977)Click for full gatefoldPeter Cetera - Bass, Vocals
Laudir de Oliveira - Percussion
Terry Kath - Guitar, Percussion, Vocals
Robert Lamm - Keyboards, Vocals
Lee Loughnane - Trumpet, Vocals
James Pankow - Trombone, Keyboards, Percussion, Vocals
Walter Parazaider - Woodwinds
Danny Seraphine - Drums, Percussion
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Mississippi Delta City Blues (Kath)
Baby, What a Big Surprise (Cetera)
Till the End of Time (Pankow)
Policeman (Lamm)
Take Me Back to Chicago (Seraphine, Wolinski)
Vote for Me (Lamm)
Takin' It on Uptown (Kath)
This Time (Loughnane)
The Inner Struggles of a Man (Frontiere)
Prelude (Little One) (Seraphine, Wolinski)
Little One (Seraphine, Wolinski)
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I never owned an LP copy of this album. I stuck with Chicago through
Chicago X, but my interests had moved on by then, and Chicago was not the powerhouse that they once were. I had a few friends who had
Chicago XI, both female, now that I think about it, and both of whom I'd actually introduced to Chicago. I borrowed it from one of them; I don't remember which. I think it was Laurie.
Back in the LP and cassette days, I used to find two albums that "went together" and put one on each side of a C-90 cassette. Because I usually listened to albums straight through, it was easier to just play the tape than get out the records, and the records were spared from a lot of the abuse that I saw my friend's records go through. Also, there were tape decks in cars, so I recorded most of my albums anyway.
So I borrowed
Chicago XI from Laurie and put it on the other side of a tape with
Chicago X. I read the credits once, but didn't have them to study and memorize, and somehow I'd believed all these years that "Little One" and that whole suite were written by Terry Kath. "Little One" is preceded by two orchestral pieces, and the parts all segue, just as with Terry's "Memories of Love" suite from the second album,
Chicago. And Terry of course sings "Little One". But no, both "Little One" and its "Prelude" are by Danny Seraphine, along with his friend David "Hawk" Wolinski. You may recall that Hawk was a guest on
Chicago VII, playing keyboards on some of the jazzy instrumentals.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The point is that I thought that Terry had written the suite which closes this album, and I think I even referred to that during my writeup of
Chicago. I thought that this album started and ended with Terry Kath songs, as did
Chicago X.
The album does start, however, with a Terry Kath song, "Mississippi Delta City Blues" which had been around since the early days. There's even a version of it on
Chicago Live in Japan, recorded during the tour for
Chicago V and not much different from the final version here. It's a great opening tune, bluesy and dirty, with plenty of horns, and of course Terry's gritty guitar and vocals.
"Baby, What a Big Surprise" was Peter Cetera's inevitable follow-up to his hit "If You Leave Me Now" from the previous album. This one reached #4 and further cemented Chicago's new-found reputation as an "Adult Contempory" group. As much as I dislike the "Adult Contemporary" label because it's so generic sounding (much like the music itself), the term "Soft Rock" is an actual oxymoron and thus even worse. Anyway, fans loved it, they loved Peter, and again the song was practically a Cetera solo piece, with J.W. Guercio on guitar and bass, lush orchestration (courtesy of Dominic Frontiere), and a host of guest background vocalists. It is the only song on the album with Cetera on lead vocals, which was very unusual during his tenure with the band.
"Till the End of Time" is James Pankow's sole contribution this time around, also a rarity. He sings it as well, doing a decent, if unremarkable, job capturing the schmaltzy 40's style. The horns of course are great on this one.
Robert Lamm's excellent "Policeman" is next. I love this song.
Every day he wakes up, as his bare feet hit the floor
Grabs a cup of coffee, straps his magnum on once more
Feeds the cat he lives with since his wife walked out the door
In nine years, he'll retire with a pensionIt's a character study in a song, chill and introspective, with some great trombone work towards the end.
"Take Me Back to Chicago" is the other Seraphine-Wolinski collaboration, sung by Robert Lamm. It's about missing your hometown and the simpler times you enjoyed back when you lived there. Chaka Khan adds some vocal spice to the outro. Chaka of course was the lead singer for Rufus, the band for which Hawk Wolinski was the keyboard player. It was released as a single and broke the Top 100, but ultimately only reached #63.
"Vote for Me" is another Lamm is-he-serious-or-isn't-he song. It feels tongue-in-cheek, and Robert's disdain for the government is well known, but I think it's just a fun mock election platform song.
"Takin' It On Uptown" is Terry Kath's other song, and is believed to be essentially a solo piece, a preview of the solo album he was working on at the time, similar to Robert Lamm's "Skinny Boy" from
Chicago VII. There is a liner note saying "Keep your eyes open", apparently in reference to Terry's solo album which was never completed, as he died following the release of this album.
"This Time" is a Lee Loughnane song. As with his other songs, it's not bad, but really, as with Pankow's "Till the End of Time", he should have had one of the regular lead singers sing it.
The album closes with the aforementioned three-track suite, the dark orchestral piece "The Inner Struggles of a Man", the lighter but brief "Prelude (Little One)" and finally the song "Little One", sung by Terry Kath. It too cracked the Billboard Top 100, reaching #44. As I mentioned, I thought for the longest time that Terry himself wrote it, and it's especially poignant because the song is written by a father to his child, and Terry had a baby daughter at the time.
Oh Little One, don't live in fear of the future
'Cause I will always be thereAnd less than a year later, he was gone. I always thought it was so tragic and ironic that he would write those words. Now I know that he didn't write them, but he did sing them, and as he did have a little one, I'm sure he meant every word. It's a great, soulfull vocal performance by Terry. And it was his last.
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During the recording of this album, the decision was made by the band to part ways with their longtime manager, producer, friend and mentor James William Guercio once the sessions were concluded. It was at his insistence that "If You Leave Me Now" was included on
Chicago X and "Baby, What a Big Surprise" was included here. While these songs were huge commercial hits, some members of the band (in particular Robert Lamm and Terry Kath) felt that they were not representative of "the Chicago sound" and would ultimately lead the band in a different direction. It turned out that they were right, but the damage had already been done, so to speak.
This would be their final album under J.W. Guercio, but more importantly, their last album with Terry Kath. Shortly after the release of
Chicago XI, Terry accidentally and fatally shot himself at a party. The heart and soul of Chicago was gone.
Overall, this album is a step up from
Chicago X, but at the same time, a bit less balanced. Peter Cetera's "Baby, What a Big Surprise" doesn't stick out as much as the band may have thought, IMO, because both Lee Loughnane and James Pankow contributed songs which they also sang, and Danny Seraphine contributed a songs few as well. Robert Lamm and Terry Kath wrote and sang a few songs each, nothing unusual there, but Chicago has always been a collective. They encouraged everyone to write songs, and apparently to attempt to sing them (or perhaps that was JWG's influence), so they couldn't very well complain when Peter Cetera's songs caught fire, and caught the public ears. But it was ultimately the mediocre songs and vocal performances that hurt this album.
There are some high points and some low points, and some great variety overall. I don't know if any of the songs are really bad, there's just too many mediocre ones. At least most of them break the four-minute barrier and don't feel like they were intentional victims of trying to keep things short and commercial-sounding.