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Chicago
Chicago is the longest-running and most commercially successful of the hordes of jazz-rock bands with horn sections that sprung up in the late '60s wake of Blood, Sweat and Tears. After myriad personnel changes (including the death of founding guitarist Terry Kath due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound) Chicago eventually mutated into a more conventional pop group that was able to score hit after hit well into the '80s, usually with romantic ballads. They remain among the best-selling American bands of all time. More recently, they briefly returned to their roots with an album of big-band era standards given the Chicago treatment.
But the conflict between Peter Cetera's style of composing and those of the rest of the group caused Cetera to leave the band in 1985 for a solo career (he topped the charts with the 'Karate Kid Part II' theme song 'The Glory of Love' and a duet with Amy Grant, 'Next Time I Fall (In Love)').
By the end of the decade, the group planned and recorded a concept album, Stone Of Sisyphus. Their record company at the time, Warner Bros. Records, was unhappy with the finished result, and thus the album was never released officially, although in succeeding years bootleg recordings of the album have surfaced worldwide, including over the Internet. Selected tracks from the unreleased album have since been officially released on a compilation greatest hits CD box set.
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Artist Biography - Chicago
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 During 1989, they did a joint concert tour with The Beach Boys (who had years earlier sung back-up vocals for 'Wishing You Were Here').
The band continued to be innovative in the decade of the 1990s, even though their popularity began to decline. In 1995, they attempted to merge their unique sound with Big Band music for their album Chicago: Night And Day (Big Band), which consisted of covers of songs originally recorded by Sarah Vaughan, Glenn Miller, and Duke Ellington (from whom the album mainly got its inspiration). During a L.A. concert in 1997, they teamed up with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra to perform a James Pankow/Dwight Mikelson orchestral arrangement of Pankow's rock epic 'Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon'.
In 2002, the group (minus Cetera) had the opportunity to tell their story in an episode of VH1's Behind The Music. The show, however, was not without its difficulties. The episode put more emphasis on the death of Terry Kath than their entire career combined, and Cetera completely disowned the special and went so far as to not allow VH1 to use all the songs he composed for the band, even declining to be interviewed (although stock news footage of a Cetera interview does appear).
Lead singers have changed from time to time (ranging from Bill Champlin to Jason Scheff), but the group still keeps active more than three-and-a-half decades after its founding. And as a new century turned, the band sold their entire recorded output to Rhino Records (after years with Columbia Records as well as their own label).
The group continues to tour in big and small venues world-wide. Currently, they are on a joint tour with the band Earth, Wind & Fire.
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For more information , enjoy the official homepage of Chicago
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