Hard To Play All The Hits: Chicago’s iconic trumpeter still loves the gig

Chicago’s iconic trumpeter still loves the gig

Chicago will release their 38th album, “Born for This Moment,” on July 15. The single, “If This is Goodbye,” is available to stream now.

(Courtesy Photo/WAC)
Chicago will release their 38th album, “Born for This Moment,” on July 15. The single, “If This is Goodbye,” is available to stream now. (Courtesy Photo/WAC)

Lee Loughnane, founding member and trumpeter for Chicago, is warming up for his next concert when he calls in for an interview with What's Up! He's also watching the show "Stranger Things." He's on season two.

"When my daughter was telling me about this, I didn't have Netflix. I wasn't going to get Netflix because I had so much other stuff," he says. With all the downtime from the pandemic, "I started binging everything," the 75-year-old adds.

Naturally we had to ask if it that's how things really looked in the '80s.

"Some of the music, but you know, it's Hollywood. They put some things in that's like 'Come on!' But a lot of it is fairly accurate -- the weird hairstyles, smoking weird stuff and putting weird things in your mouth and swallowing them," he quips.

Chicago formed in 1967, calling themselves The Big Thing. After the release of their first album, "Chicago Transit Authority," in 1969, they adopted the moniker of the big city. Chicago's original lineup included Peter Cetera on bass, Terry Kath on guitar, Robert Lamm on keyboards, Loughnane on trumpet, James Pankow on trombone, Walter Parazaider on woodwinds and Danny Seraphine on drums. Cetera, Kath and Lamm shared lead vocal duties. Since then Kath passed away in 1978, Cetera exited the band, and Parazaider retired. Lamm, Loughnane and Pankow have remained constant members. The band lineup now includes Ray Herrmann on sax and flute, Wally Reyes Jr. on drums, Neil Donell on vocals, Ramon "Ray" Yslas on percussion, Tony Obrohta on guitar, Loren Gold on keyboards and vocals, and Eric Baines on bass and vocals.

"Seems like every show is different from the last one. It's amazing how that can keep happening. After all the shows that we've played, each night is a little bit different from the last," Loughnane says. "It's amazing how the venues change, sound-wise, volume-wise, sometimes it's just really great. You're indoors, and it's controlled. You can hear each other, and it's just more musical. And sometimes you just play and 'get 'er' done.'

One constant over the five decades is the fans.

"[The fans] haven't really changed all that much other than growing up with us. The people who were seeing us in the '70s got married, had kids, and then they start bringing their kids, and the kids liked what they're hearing, and then they grew up, they got married and had kids, and they're bringing their kids. So other than that, and we have people from 10 years old to 70 years old, in the audience, and they're all digging on it and they're loving it."

After being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and winning multiple Grammys, Loughnane says it's still a thrill to hear so many people singing their long list of hits back to them.

"When you write a song, you're hoping that anybody else besides yourself will like it. So to have this many people share some sort of enjoyment with with the tunes that you've written is pretty cool," he adds.

With 21 top 10 singles -- five of them gold -- 25 certified platinum albums and more a million albums sold, the biggest hurdle is playing the songs that everyone wants to hear.

"It's amazing that we can get away with it sometimes, not playing 'If You Leave Me Now' or 'Hard Habit to Break.' Sometimes the sets are shorter because of the venue that we're playing. So we have to leave a few songs out. And nobody ever actually complains. They go, 'Oh, I wish you would have done this song or that song,' but they had a good time with the show," Loughnane laughs. He adds that they always have to play "Saturday in the Park." They often close with "25 or 6 to 4."

Chicago will release their 38th album, "Born for This Moment," on July 15. The single, "If This is Goodbye," is available to stream now. The latest album was tricky to put together because of the pandemic. While they adapted their record-making process to be able to record on the road in the past, Loughnane says this album presented new challenges.

"Because of the pandemic we never had actually got in the studio together for any length of time; the only time we got together was with the brass in my studio in Sedona," he adds. "The benefit of being in the studio together is that when you play something together, you can adjust it here or there. It's so much harder to do when you're putting a file together, and then you email it to somebody else. And then they put in their thing. You can't really talk to each other. So in that way, this was the weirdest album that we have ever recorded.

"I would hope that, you know, after the pandemic, when we record again, we'll be able to get in the studio and just bounce ideas off each other like the old days. But it still came out sounding pretty damn good."

  photo  Three original members, Robert Lamm on keyboards, Lee Loughnane on trumpet and James Pankow on trombone, are back on the road with Chicago, stopping June 21 at the Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion. (Courtesy Photo/WAC)
 
 

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