Chicago "Chicago 17" (1984): Track by Track!

🎙️ On this episode of the Surely You Can’t Be Serious Podcast, Jason and Dee are going track by track through one of the biggest albums of the 1980s—Chicago 17. From unforgettable hits like Hard Habit to Break and You’re the Inspiration to the deep cuts that defined the era, the guys take a deep dive into the music, the making, and the magic of this iconic record.Along the way, they explore the evolution of Chicago, the massive influence of producer David Foster, and the behind-the-scenes drama that shaped the band’s future. What made this album their best-selling record of all time? And how did it all lead to the shocking departure of frontman Peter Cetera?Tune in for stories, trivia, and the ultimate breakdown of the album that put Chicago back on top in 1984.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is your old Valcy.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
And it's time listen Jason.

Speaker 3 (00:08):
Andy Ca.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Okay, so we're gonna be talking about a horn band
to day called Chicago Transit Authority.

Speaker 4 (00:46):
That's right, that's right. It's just you and me, and
I'm feeling stronger every day. D This is gonna be
like a Saturday in the park and instead of wishing
you were here, it's gonna be like the old days.
And I know we said we're gonna start it two o'clock,
but does anybody really know what time it is? It
could be twenty five or sixty four. So today we're

(01:09):
gonna be talking about the mighty Chicago.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
That was a heck of an introduction. Thanks for taking
us back to the beginnings.

Speaker 4 (01:17):
You know, we gotta start somewhere, So welcome to the
Shirley You Can't be Serious podcast. Everybody. Today we're talking
about the album Chicago seventeen seventeen seventeen.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Have we ever talked about the seventeenth album of any band? Nope,
not yet, I don't think so. This is it isn't
like this is a nineties album. This is the eighties.
So this band started way back in the sixties.

Speaker 4 (01:42):
In the sixties and really hit their second win, like
their second stride mid eighties with MTV and all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah, so I hit up my dad since this was
an older band, and I remember him playing Saturday in
the Park when we got our first like synthesizer keyboard
that weighed two hundred pounds and he was playing things
with the little you know, samba drum beats and stuff
like that. I can remember him playing Saturday in the
Park on this thing, and so I just was like, oh,
I should hit that up. I'm like, hey, did you
enjoy the band Chicago? And he was like, I like

(02:11):
their music, but I couldn't tell you a single band
member's name or what any of them look like. And
I was like, well, there's a reason for that. They
didn't put their faces on virtually any of their albums,
at least for the first I don't know.

Speaker 4 (02:23):
Ten or so absolutely by design.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah, they were a group as a group, there was
no leader. It was a democracy, and around about nineteen
eighty four that kind of change.

Speaker 4 (02:36):
That definitely changed. And the interesting thing is that the
horn guy and the trombone guy and the woodwind guy
are like, hey, we're leaders.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yeah, mmm, are you? Though? We could play the keyboards
and the guitar if you want, and that's what they did. Okay.
But so for those of you who are not Chicago
huge fans, I mean just I'll ask you this question,
can you name me a member of Chicago. If you
said Peter Satara, I'll say, congratulations. He hasn't been with
a band in about fifty years sorry, forty years. Forty

(03:06):
years yes, And then if you can, if you can
pull out Terry Cath, I'm gonna say, okay, almost fifty
years for pretty good yep, yep. But most people don't
know any of the names of these guys, so I'm
just gonna throw it out all right. The original lineup,
we have Terry Cath on guitar, Robert Lamb on keyboards,
Lee Locknane on trumpet, James Pankout on trombone, Walter Perizidor

(03:28):
on woodwinds, and Danny Sarafin on drums. Now, not too
long after they these guys got together and really started going,
they were joined by Peter Setera on bass.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
Like six months or so.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, so basically we could consider him a founding member
as well. I would say that, yeah, And it was
essentially the founding members for the first fifteen sixteen years
of their existence. And the deal was when you shook
hands to join the band, it was you're in until
you quit or you die. We will never fire you
quote will never fire you.

Speaker 5 (04:03):
You know.

Speaker 4 (04:04):
Well, we'll see if that holds true throughout the eighties.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Okay, before we get rolling, I just gotta throw it
a couple of tidbits on these guys, just so that
they gives them some personality, all right. So Robert Lamb,
he was he was the main songwriter at the beginning
of the band, had like fifty songs in a notebook
when they started back in their early twenties. Yeah. He
went to Brooklyn Heights and performed in the men's choir
at Grace Episcopal Church. Another member of that choir was

(04:31):
Harry Chapin Catching the Cradles Silverspoon House. Yep. All right,
So there's your tidbit on Robert Lamb as an after
this album tidbit and this is for you, def Dave.
He with Jerry Beckley of the band America and Carl
Wilson of the band The Beach Boys, formed a trio
to play together after Wilson's death from lung cancer. In

(04:51):
ninety eight, they released an album that was entitled Like
a Brother. Oh cool, yep, I love it. And then
last for James Pankow. Yes, all right, here's tidbit on him.
He is the older brother of John Pankow. Do you
know who that is? Did you watch Mad About You
the TV show? Yes? Yeah? Remember Ira Buddy? Yeah, well
that's his brother. Whoa Yeah, So there you go.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
That is fantastic. Yeah wow, okay man.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
We'll have a lot more information on Terry cath and
Peter Satara as the episode goes on. But I just
thought we need some little tidbits for these guys to
give him some life.

Speaker 4 (05:24):
Absolutely, the faces and the names have been hidden from
us for too long. And actually, I want to tell
you this. I was really excited to get into this
because this was a album that I owned. I had
a cassette and actually it's on our wall. Were checking
off another one of our wall.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Who was a gift did this give? Was this a
gift for us?

Speaker 4 (05:41):
I think I bought that one.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
That one?

Speaker 4 (05:43):
All right, good job, But it was always a mystery
to me because I entered at Chicago seventeen. Where's Peter Stara.
Why isn't he with the band anymore? Why is he solo?
Did they fire him? Did he quit? What happened?

Speaker 1 (05:54):
Have you seen karate Kid two? Yes?

Speaker 4 (05:58):
Right, So well for us to dive into this, I
was really pleased to find out kind of the story. Yeah,
before we get started on the first song, I want
to give quick overview of this album. Like we said,
there are sixteen albums prior to this, and I do
kind of want to go through the albums and talk
a little bit about their hits and kind of yeah,
because there's ups and downs and it's kind of dramatic

(06:20):
the way that kind of goes. But it's their fourteenth
studio album, their seventeenth album overall. Right, Not every album
was called Chicago Wan, Chicago two, Chicago three. There were
some different names in between, but they still counted them.
This was released May fourteenth, nineteen eighty four. We're comparing
it next week to Survivor Vital Signs, which is another

(06:43):
band from Chicago.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
How about that? There you go.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
This album sold six point one million albums, won three
Grammy Awards, and this group as a whole has sold
over one hundred million albums total.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
Billboard magazine ranked them as the number thirteen thirteen in
a list of the top one hundred artists of all time,
and they rank them as ninth on the list of
the hundred greatest artists of all time on the Billboard
two hundred album chart.

Speaker 4 (07:14):
It's incredible, you know. In nineteen seventy one, thirteen years
before we talked about this album, they sold out Carnegie
Hall for a week.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
First time any band has ever done that. It's incredible. Yeah,
all right, We're ready to dive in. Let's dive in.
Song number one on Chicago seventeen.

Speaker 4 (07:30):
This song is called stay the Night.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
This unstand.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Says time. All right.

Speaker 4 (07:59):
So this is the reason why I ran out and
got this tape, this song. I fell in love with
this song right off the bat, yep. And part of
the reason why it had a super cool video on MTV. Okay,
so watch the video.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yes I did, and it's I mean, it's so it's
nineteen eighty four. Yeah, so this comes out just after
Thriller had come out, right, and so I think the
video directors we moved on from guys who had just
finished beer commercials, who were recording Journey, not playing their
instruments but air guitaring two guys who actually knew what
they were doing, creating a story. This one's it's decent.

(08:35):
It seemed to be a running theme that the rock
stars were guys who worked on cars and as mechanics
in the videos. I don't know why that was always
the thing, but somehow the hot girls always liked the
guys working on the cars.

Speaker 4 (08:47):
Yes, of course they did.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
And so this one is interesting because you got Peter
Setera making out with this girl and he then she's
like pushing his hand away from getting to third base,
and then she's pushing his hand away from getting a
second base. Thank he got close to he was going
for cuppage.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
Man.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
There was a little jiggle. It was so close. And
then all of a sudden she's slapping his face and
stealing his car, and he's chasing after either her the car.
I'm not entirely sure which one it is.

Speaker 4 (09:14):
Okay, so this is the I've got to talk about
this because I absolutely love this video because you're right,
he's a mechanic, he's working on a car. She is
hot as a firecracker. Her name, by the way, is
Ingrid Anderson. She's been in the movie Hercules with our
good buddy Loof Forrigno.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
I was gonna say, are we talking about the Loof
frigg the iconic, the underrated, the cult classic. Yes, the
dubbed dubbed over Hercules? Huh that's it? Oh my gosh.

Speaker 4 (09:45):
So she stars in Hercules. Her name is Ingrid Anderson,
and she was paid ten thousand dollars to come in
and let Peter Stara feel her up, jumps in the

(10:10):
red convertible car whatever it is, she peels out. He
chases after her, and the guys in the Chicago band
have this really cool blue pickup truck it is He
hops in the back, and so I thought it was interesting.
The director of the video was given the task of
making Chicago relevant on MTV, and he's like, well, these
guys are not spring chickens. How can I do that?

Speaker 1 (10:30):
Right? I mean, these guys are born in the in
the forties, mid forties, and this is the mid eighties,
which means their late thirties early forties, they're pushing forty.

Speaker 4 (10:38):
And he's like, well, if I make this incredibly exciting
car chase, MTV will have to play it.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
Of course, And guess what they did.

Speaker 6 (10:45):
He did, and they did.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yeah, absolutely, But at the end I thought it was hilarious.

Speaker 6 (10:49):
You know.

Speaker 4 (10:50):
First of all, they smashed through a billboard that says
Chicago seventeen.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
On it whatever, its plastic moment, yes.

Speaker 4 (10:55):
And the band guys are driving him all over the
place and he's chasing her and at the very end
the truck explodes, like yeah, like C four goes on.
It was like cub Louis.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, it was. I mean it was obviously just sitting
still and way in but still it was a memorable
moment for a music video for sure.

Speaker 4 (11:12):
Right, they tried to cut it so we didn't notice
the car was not moving. And then Peterstair is lying
on the ground outside of the ambulance and it looks
like he just got done grilling burgers. He's like not
hurt at all. And then Ingrid Anderson gets in the
ambulance and very twilight zone.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
She's I want to see something scary. Yeah, yes, yeah, no,
it's great, and he half of the video he is
hanging on to the car door as she's driving full
speed down the highway. Now I was sitting here thinking, well,
that's obviously a stuntman. There are some scenes where you
can clearly see his face. I mean, I know they
probably had him tied on pretty tight, but I wouldn't

(11:49):
want to be doing that four year old dude.

Speaker 4 (11:52):
They don't make movies this good anymore. Oh, it was exciting,
It was, It really was so anyway. So this song
is released April eighteenth, just ahead of the release of
the album of nineteen eighty four. It reached number sixteen.
I got out in these.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
For me, all right.

Speaker 4 (12:08):
So a lot of these are sort of touching, sheerly,
you can't be serious type of stuff here.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
So sure.

Speaker 4 (12:14):
Number nine is a song called you Can't Get what
you Want, You can't.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Always get what you want?

Speaker 4 (12:20):
But a rolling stone string? Yeah, I don't recognize that one, alrighty.
Then you've got Sister Christian.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Which we've talked about in detail.

Speaker 4 (12:27):
Yeah, it's a Miracle by Culture Club right almost Paradise
Love It talked about Footloose. Number eleven is Borderline by Madonna.
Number ten His Eyes Without a Face by Billy Idol.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Talked about that one. Check out our Billy Idol episode.

Speaker 4 (12:39):
Number nine, Oh Sherry by Steve Perry, Great number eight
when Doves Cry, Oh nice? Yeah, Number seven Jump from
My Love by the Pointer Sisters. Number six Heart of
Rock and Roll by Huey Lewis.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
And the News. Gosh, what a chart is this?

Speaker 4 (12:53):
Number five Self Control by Laura Brannigan.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
Oh wow, yeah, I know you love that. I do
love it, yes.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
Number four Dancing and Dark by Bruce Springsteen.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
It's fantastic.

Speaker 4 (13:02):
Number three Let's here for the Boy off the Philus soundtrack, huh.
Number two Time after Time by Cindy Lapper, and number
one The Reflex by Duran.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Duran, shut up like this will I will give me
this as a mixed CD and I'm gonna listen to
it for the next month.

Speaker 4 (13:15):
Summer of eighty was off the chart.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
There are no other than the song that sounds like
the Rolling Stone song that I don't know which I
probably if I heard that song at this point and
be like, oh that song just just not ringing a bell.
But out of sixteen, fifteen of them are all timers, right, yes,
absolutely awesome. What a great what a great time to
be alive.

Speaker 4 (13:34):
I know right by the way, I've got one, I've
got two nuggets I gotta drop on you regarding this song.
So I'm listening to this. It's very rock. Oh yeah, right, yes,
you have the gated drum at the beginning, that's true. Yeah,
So guess who's playing drums on this?

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Is it?

Speaker 4 (13:50):
Not Danny Sarafin, Not Danny Serafin, David Foster's like you're
on the bench, I'm bringing in my guy.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Jeff Picaro shut up really yep?

Speaker 4 (13:59):
Okay, yeah, which we've talked about them being like the
best of the studio musician.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
Jeff arguably the greatest strummer of all time.

Speaker 4 (14:07):
Right, and the guitar there's like a heavy metal guitar
solo in the middle of this. Yes, no French horns
by the way, No sorry horns in this song. Sorry
old time Chicago people.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah, but I looked up that guy.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
His name is Chris Pinnock.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (14:21):
He was a studio guy, not a lot, but he
did write the music for a movie called My Mom's
a Werewolf, which I've got to check out now.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
So I'm really glad you dug that deep boy rabbit hole.
If I ever heard one. One more thing for you.

Speaker 4 (14:38):
The director of this video, his name is Gil Bentman.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
Now, he directed episodes of Night Writer and The Fall Guy.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Oh fantastic, Yes, I can see that absolutely, right, Yeah, absolutely,
it may be the exact names. It's perfect, right, No,
that's great.

Speaker 4 (14:52):
He also directed a movie called Crystal Heart.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Who I've heard of that? Is that ring all with you?
Is it like a Cinemax movie? Yes it is.

Speaker 4 (15:01):
It was a Sumac's favorite of me and my buddies.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Uh huh, because yes.

Speaker 4 (15:06):
It starred the lovely Tawny Katine, who was not fully
clothed for half the movie.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
So wow.

Speaker 4 (15:14):
Anyway, but we should probably talk about how this song
was written by Peter Seta yep, and David Foster. Yeah,
David Foster is really a big player in this album.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah, so you know this band, and we'll talk about
the history of this band as we're going through. But
they had had a great deal of success in the seventies,
definitely a seventies band. By the time we get to
Chicago fourteen, they've run their course. They are all, if
not currently addicted to drugs, rehabbing themselves from being addicted

(15:50):
to drugs. The music is suffering, and Columbia just says,
we're not going to make another album for you. We'll
buy you out of their out of your contract, and
so so that gets us because of the contract they
had with them, they had to do one more album.
That had Colombia had to release one more album, which
is why Chicago fifteen is a greatest Hits album, Okay, right,

(16:12):
And then that leaves them without a record label for
their sixteenth album, and they don't know what to do.
But who should step in? But our old friend Irving
as Off. So Irving as Off had just the Eagles
had just broken up a little while before this. If
you don't remember Irving azof, go back and check out

(16:33):
our Eagles episode. He managed to somehow keep them from
getting arrested despite the fact that they had maybe pounds
of marijuana on them at the airport. And they were like,
if he can do that, he can do anything. And
then they break up, and so he starts his own
independent label and he's like, you know what, Columbia may
not believe in Chicago, but I believe in Chicago. And

(16:54):
so he says, guys, I'm gonna hook you up here.
We're going to get this young and upcoming producer is
on fire right now. He plays well, he produces well,
and he writes well. His name is David Foster, that's right,
And so We've talked about David Foster before when we
talk about John Parr.

Speaker 4 (17:12):
John Parr the Saint Elmo's fire Man in Motion song.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Right, he hit your subscribe button, by the way, because
we will be kind of covering Saint Almost Fire a
little bit later on this season. There you go Sant
Almost Fire versus The Breakfast Club, The Plan, Rat Pack Movies. Guys,
you can't miss that. Hit the subscribe button, all right, yeah, okay,
So anyway, yes, he and John Parr get together and
write Man in Motion and it's a smash. It is.

Speaker 4 (17:37):
You and I talked before we were doing this. We
both saw the same interview with him where he's like,
I'm great.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
I know, I'm great.

Speaker 4 (17:42):
You don't get sixteen Grammys without being great.

Speaker 5 (17:44):
I know.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
He literally has the sixteen Grammys behind him, and he's like, okay, guys,
where are we going to set up for the interview. Yeah,
we're gonna step in front of my sixteen Grammys? Can
you see right here behind me?

Speaker 4 (17:56):
But you know what, he's not wrong.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
It ain't bragging if you can do it righthy gosh. Yeah.
So yeah, So David Foster, he listened. They got thirteen songs. Right,
and they play him each of the songs and when
they're done, he said, they all suck. He said, in
listening to it, it was one boring song after another.
He said, you guys have forgotten who you are. You
are not the Chicago that I grew up with. You're

(18:19):
not the Chicago that I loved listening to in the seventies.
You got to find who you are. And when he
said that, what he really meant was, I'm going to
make you back into something great. It's not going to
be the same as who you were. But he was
integral to their charting success for Chicago sixteen, which, irving
Azof's small record label, was a part of the Warner label,

(18:42):
and so that was helpful in getting sixteen out there.
Which of then, I mean, they're like a phoenix from
the asses on sixteen and suddenly they're relevant again. They're
making videos and we get this album, Chicago seventeen.

Speaker 4 (18:55):
You know, when you look at the story of Chicago,
you know who It really reminds me of Heart.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
Okay, you know we talked about Heart.

Speaker 4 (19:01):
Earlier this year. You've got a one of a kind voice.
They're not writing great songs, so what do you do
you come in and you say, let's pump up the songs,
Let's get some cool videos, let's get you back in
front of people, remember who you are, and let's go
conquer this thing again.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
Right all right?

Speaker 4 (19:18):
Second song on the album. This song is called we
Can Stop the Hurting.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Okay, what are your thoughts?

Speaker 4 (19:41):
I think it's fun. It's a toe tapper. I think
it sounds like old Chicago.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
This is definitely more it's the old Chicago lyrically and musically,
but instrumentation wise, they've they've definitely got there. They're bringing
the up a little bit. Well, it's I don't I
want to say polished, It's just that it's they've got
the synthesize, they've got the It sounds to be like, partially,
if not fully, a drum machine. It's very early eighties instrumentation.

(20:09):
And honestly it's not my favorite. This maybe my least
favorite song on the whole album. It's kind of a
toe tapper. Yeah. Then this is. The lead singer on
this one is Robert Lamb, and he, like I said,
had written a majority of their songs at the at
the inception of the band. Obviously, you've got plenty of

(20:31):
different songwriting going on throughout their history. But yeah, he was.
He was struggling with some addiction in this part too,
and basically they said it was hard to get him
to show up, and he admitted he was like, I
just didn't want to come, did not want to come
to the recording sessions. Really, yeah, it's crazy. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (20:46):
I did see an interview with Peter Seto when they
were asking him, you know that they were people were
interviewing him. They're like, do you talk to any of
those guys anymore? He's like, he's like, well, you know
how when you get a divorce hang out with your
ex wife very much?

Speaker 1 (21:00):
We don't.

Speaker 4 (21:00):
Yeah, he goes, I do talk to Robert Lamb on occasion,
and for me at least, I was like.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Okay, well maybe maybe sure maybe. Yeah. So there's that.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
I got a couple of tidbits for you on this song. Okay, okay,
So this song was written by Robert Lamb and Bill Champlin.
If you don't know who he is, he's the guy
who sings the other part on Heart Habit to Break,
which we'll talk about here in a minute. Yep, Okay,
I did read that background vocals on this song and
others on this album provided you by Donny Osmond.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
Nice and Richard Marx of course, right man, Richard Marx
is everywhere. It is everywhere, everywhere. So these guys, I
think you have to you know, you got seven member band.
I can't give you the history of every guy and
what they all went through, but I think you got
to start with Terry Cath. Terry Cath was basically the
band leader of this band. He started. His first kind

(21:51):
of semi professional band was a band called the Mystics,
which he started in nineteen sixty three. Then he went
on to a band called Jimmy Rice and the gentle
One in sixty five, and then he switched to a
band called Jimmy Ford and the Executives and he was
playing bass for them. Now he is arguably one of
the greatest guitar players of all time, referred to by

(22:14):
Jimmy Hendricks as the greatest guitar player in the universe.
That's crazy, right, That's that's incredible. Like I mean, I
just i'd be like, okay, I can kill me now,
like right whatever.

Speaker 4 (22:25):
I've achieved it all.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
Whatever. So even though the name of the band was
Jimmy Ford, and the executives. Terry was the kind of
the leader of the musical direction of the band. And
it's in that band, you know. Jimmy Ford was a trumpeter,
and he had Walter Perizaider as a saxophone player. And
then a little while later they picked up Danny Sarafin
as the drummer. Okay, and then they decided to merge

(22:49):
with another band, and they were like, hey, Terry, Walter, Danny,
you're fired, really freaking fired the founding members of what
would be Chicago.

Speaker 4 (22:59):
Wow, make sure I understand this. The So there's another band,
and they fired all the guys who would eventually sell
one hundred million albums.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
That's correct. Yes, Jimmy Ford and the executives merged with
Little Artie and the Pharaohs to produce, and then they
fired the guys who are one of the greatest selling
bands of all times. And the guitarist what he told them,
He's like, it's just business. It is bad business. You
just made a bad business decision. So Terry joins a

(23:28):
cover band called the Missing Links. He gets a Parisider
and Sarafin to come join him. They start playing clubs
in Chicago on a regular basis, and they've got friends
at De Paul University where they go to school, including
the trumpeter Lee Lucknane, and they're like, hey, come sit
in with the band because we need a trumpeter. Yep.

(23:50):
So another guy that would sit in the band was
a guy named James William Garcio that he would become
their producer manager. Guy yes, And so Garcia gets a
offer to play with this band called Illinois speed Press
and moved to Los Angeles and he says, Terry, I
want you to come with me, and Terry's like, I'd
rather stay with these guys. I like what we're doing here,
and so he stayed with Peris Aider and Saraphine and Locknane,

(24:14):
and they recruit James Pankow who's also from DePaul, and
they also recruit Robert Lamb and you can see as
the pieces are coming and coming that eventually this band
forms to what they would call themselves, the Big Thing.
And then they hire a guy named Peter Seterra who

(24:34):
is playing with a band called the Exceptions. At that
point they moved to LA they changed their name to
the Chicago Transit Authority, and they signed with Columbia Records.
I love it.

Speaker 4 (24:44):
I love it, and I've got a history that I
want to talk to you about. The interesting thing to
me when they changed their name to Chicago Transit Authority
nineteen sixty eight, they put out one album as CTA
in the name of the album too, that's right, Yeah,
Chicago Transit Authority. They actually have have to change their
name because the actual Chicago Transit Authority threatens.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
To sue them. Yeah, guys, you, what are you doing?
We're a thing. You can't be the thing that we're
the thing. And they're like, Okay, I guess.

Speaker 4 (25:13):
Calling ourselves the thing we're not.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
Yeah, well, I guess we'll be Chicago. We keep getting
calls wanting to know when we're going to play next. Okay,
we're a transportation company, not a band.

Speaker 4 (25:24):
Please, we have nothing going on this Saturday in the park.
I'm telling you, Okay, let's go on. The next song
this is.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
One you might have heard of, maybe if you have
heard of Chicago or music or the United States. This
song is called hard Habit to Break.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
I guess the fun Forever another I chose to c.

Speaker 7 (25:54):
You don't know about chicot until Let's go And I'm
fucking out.

Speaker 4 (26:04):
Skaters move out to the middle of the dance floor.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
You know, I didn't go to my first school dance
until nineteen eighty nine, and I could still say with
confidence I can remember slow dancing with this song.

Speaker 4 (26:14):
Oh my god, I told you today. This song just
sounds like cheap perfume and Hickey's This is This is
a junior high dance sway Hall of Famer.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
Now takes a lot of caddies.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
She love to live with it.

Speaker 4 (26:51):
Robert, I'm not saying that I solved some of the
mysteries of the broadclasp to this song, but I'm not
not saying it. Yeah, this song was written Get This
by a guy named Steve Kipner and John Lewis Parker. Okay,
did those name ring any bells to you?

Speaker 1 (27:08):
They do, but I don't remember what. Okay.

Speaker 4 (27:10):
Steve Kipner is responsible for the hit songs heart Attack,
Twist of Fate, and Physical by Olivia Newton John very
Good yes, right ye, also Genie in a Bottle by
Christina Aguilera. Okay, right, hit Baker right well. He paired
up with a guy named John Lewis Parker to write
this song, which is a number three Smash and John

(27:32):
Lewis Parker is responsible for the original Chips theme before
the Cool.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
One, before the Allen Sevestri one.

Speaker 4 (27:38):
That's exactly right, because else Sylvester took over.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
Right.

Speaker 4 (27:42):
He also wrote the theme song for the TV show
Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Okay, and the Family Feud song.
So literally, you take the guy who wrote the theme
song to Family Feud and you match him up with
the guy who wrote Genina Bottle and you get hard
Habit to Break.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
It's beautiful, that's fantastic.

Speaker 4 (28:04):
This song hits number three on the charts. Okay, do
you want to know the top songs on this week.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
And number two or We're going to go through all
the top live.

Speaker 4 (28:13):
So I wanted to tell you the top two, but
I had to just blow through these real quick.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (28:17):
Number nine's Purple Rain. We've covered that one.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:20):
Number eight is On the Dark Side by John Cafferty.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
Yeah, we've covered that one. Cover that one on Patreon episodes, Guys,
go check out our Patreon page. It is patreon dot com.
Slash Shirley podcast. We cover all of the one hit wonders,
including On the Dark Side and for a little five
bucks a month you get access to all of those episodes.
You can join for free and see what we're talking about.
We have a lot of good conversation with it, and
if you up your tier and support us a little

(28:43):
bit more, we'll send you presents. Heck, we may even
invite you to Shirley Fast next year.

Speaker 4 (28:47):
We appreciate all of our patrons, thank you very much.
In fact, Travis Laslie Patreon, I remember came on and
did the The on the dark Side Patreon, one.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
Of our very first listeners and a dedicated fan. Great
guy like chefs. Yep. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (29:00):
Number seven is covered Me by Bruce Springsteen. Number six
is Drive by the Cars. Number five is Let's Go
Crazy by Prince. Number four Lucky Star by Madonna. Number
three is Hard to Have It to Break. Number two
is Caribbean Queen, which I know you hate but I
love Gosh.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
I think I feel like I feel about Billy Ocean
the way you feel about Stevie Wonder. I think that's
what that's our that's what our connection is there.

Speaker 4 (29:24):
Speaking of the number one song in America, I just
called to say I love you Hey. The worst song
of the eighties, no song he.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
Had brand Newcassio keyboard to play with.

Speaker 4 (29:38):
Hey, remember Phil Collins threw some shade at Stevie Wonder
on that particular song because it won the Grammy over
against all odds. But Phil was like, he didn't write
that for that movie. He just gave him a song.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yeah, that's right. This song was.

Speaker 4 (29:54):
Released July second, nineteen eighty four. Like I said, Reach
number three, nominated for four rents.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
This song is incredible. It's iconic. Probably the tenth pole

(30:20):
of the whole album in my opinion. I got it.

Speaker 4 (30:23):
I got it in the ondeck circle. It's it's it's
up there for sure. But there's one more I would
put on the.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
I can understand where You're I understand where you're coming
from on that. By the way, guys, just for clarification,
this album is still to date and this is one
of the greatest selling bands of all times. This is
their biggest selling album. Incredible stuff. Yeah, it's amazing.

Speaker 4 (30:44):
Okay, just a couple of little tidbits on the music video.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Okay, not a great video. It's real dark.

Speaker 4 (30:49):
Guys are kind of spotlighted while they're singing. It's a
duet between Peter Seta and Bill Champlain, which I think
Bill Champlin's got a great voice, right, And then you
have a few meaningless people in like negligees doing nothing
people I mean girls, Okay, you know, of course, because.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
I mean it was the eighties and there's no no story.
Put some girls in some skimpy neglige.

Speaker 4 (31:15):
Is no story. But there are cute sexy girls in
this all right, Okay, okay. Next song on the album
is a song called only.

Speaker 7 (31:22):
You we Can tell Me.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
Okay, So this song has made me discover that I
do not have a taste for eighties jazz. This is
a very jazzy piece. The horns, I mean, and even
if even with the Chicago horns. And don't get me wrong, folks,
I love the seventies horn heavy Chicago. We'll get in
the eighties, and you give me synthesizers with very Christine like,

(32:12):
almost synthesizer sounding horns. It ain't my bag, man.

Speaker 4 (32:16):
You know, I understand that. But as I have gone
through these past couple weeks listening to this album, this
song has taken a hold on my heart. Okay, So
I like it. It is jazzy, it is kind of
it feels like it might belong on like Toto four
or something like that.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah, an episode of Moonlighting maybe.

Speaker 4 (32:33):
Yeah, I wrote down in the movie Mannequin, like you know,
she's dancing around.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
On the mall or whatever. Yeah, I could see that.

Speaker 4 (32:42):
Yeah, okay, So let's go back to LA in nineteen
sixty eight when Chicago Transit Authority is in LA. They're
performing at the Whiskey.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
A go go, I got a story about that. Can
I tell you that story? Yeah? Okay, So they're relatively new,
but they are up and coming, right, they're playing some shows, right,
and who else is big at that time? Jimmy Hendrix
and Janis Joplin. And Janis Joplin has her entourage with
her as she comes into I probably think it was
the Whiskey and Walter Paris aider is sitting down and

(33:12):
she drops a brush, I think, in front of him,
and she's like, you're going to pick that up or what?
And he said, no, I'm not going to pick it up.
You're going to pick it up, and after you pick
it up, you're gonna tell me you're sorry for talking
to me like that. I love it. And she picked
it up and she said I'm sorry. And after that
she and the guys from Chicago became very close. They

(33:34):
credit her with teaching them how to work the crowd
while on stage. She had this incredible stage personality and
she gave them advice about how to entice the crowd
bring him a lively show. So credit that to Janice
Joplin being rude and then saying she's sorry, I love it.
It's fantastic.

Speaker 4 (33:52):
Yeah, the little guy from the South Side of Chicago
pick up my brush.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
Yeah, that's fantastic. All right.

Speaker 4 (33:59):
So the first album from Chicago, this is Chicago one
Chicago Transit Authority, right. It has the single does anyone
really know what time it is?

Speaker 3 (34:12):
As I was walking down the street?

Speaker 2 (34:16):
Well, they.

Speaker 4 (34:19):
No, I've got my dad listening. I know you so
hooked at this point.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
Oh dude, it's a fantastic song.

Speaker 4 (34:22):
It is fantastic. That's actually Robert Lamb singing that song.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 4 (34:26):
The next year they released Chicago two.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
Right, which was actually just Chicago, but this was on
the before and after the Chicago Transit Authority called them
up and said, stop using our name, stupid, right, So
they they called this one originally just called it Chicago,
but everybody kind of knows this as Chicago too, right.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
The single off that album is twenty five or six
to four.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah, well they had make Me Smile to start with,
and then yeah, twenty five I have and six to
four is what really brought them up. I think they
hit the top ten with that one quickly.

Speaker 4 (35:04):
I'm just gonna blow through. The Chicago three comes out
in nineteen seventy one. I didn't recognize anything off Chicago three.
Then they have an album called Chicago at Carnegie Hall,
and then in nineteen seventy two you have Chicago five.
The big hit off of that one is Saturday in
the Park Love It Say?

Speaker 1 (35:24):
Thank my dad played? I think I said that my
dad played that one all the time. Okay.

Speaker 4 (35:30):
The sixth album came out in nineteen seventy three. That
has Just You and Me and feeling stronger every day.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
Okay, So do you do you know the story behind
Just You and Me? I do not. I almost hate
to do this because I feel like, maybe we go
back to these albums and cover them later, but just
in case, I'll retell the story if we did, if
we ever do that, all right, So, James Pankau had
he was dealing with the drug situation. He had a
fiance and had was back home with her. They get
an argument about something, I don't know what it was,

(35:57):
and there's not getting along, and she locks herself in
the bathroom and he's like, come on, come out, come on,
come on, come out. And he's like, I don't know
what came over me, but I was like, screw it.
And he kicked the door off and kicked it in right,
kicks the door, and he says, at that moment, he
sees like a look of terror on his fiance's face,
like he is. He's like, she's in fear for her life,

(36:19):
and all of a sudden that makes him like realize
what he's done, and he's he steps back immediately and
he's just standing there, not knowing what to do. Walks
over the piano, fortunately hits record on the tape recorder
next to the piano, and literally the song comes out
of him. Never played a note of it before, but
almost from beginning to end, the entire song comes out.

(36:42):
He walks back to the bathroom where his fiance is
still sitting terrified on the edge of the toilet and
pushes play song plays. She stands up, They embrace and
all this forgiven. Wow. Yeah, that's fantastic, good story. Yeah,
love it.

Speaker 4 (36:58):
So off of Chicago seven, you got I've Been Searching
So Long, which reached number nine, Wishing You Were Here,
which hits number eleven, and Call on Me hits number six,
you got some powerful singleses.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
Are on fire. Absolutely, they are.

Speaker 4 (37:10):
Crushing it in the seventies and they're just pumping out
hit after hit. Yeah okay, and then Chicago eight comes
out next you have Old Days Harry Truman and brand
New Love Affair. I don't really recognize those, but they're
still selling album Dad Yelling, My Dad yelling Hill the
radio again okay. And then right after that they released
their ninth album that is the first of the Chicago

(37:30):
Greatest hits that's actually considered Chicago nine Okay, yep, that's
the one where they're all they're kind of painting it's
real famous. Oh right, right, like everybody's parents had that
in the seventies.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
Right, Yeah, great, a great album cover. Finally, the guy's
pictures are on the album cover instead of just the
iconic logo of Chicago. That's right.

Speaker 4 (37:46):
Yeah, no, you didn't really talk about that. Why did
they not have their faces on the albums.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
Well, I mean, honestly, they they kind of wanted their
faces on the album. This was this was their This
was their manager's decision that, hey, we don't we needed
this is a band, this is seven member band. We
can't possibly have all of these faces on there and
do them all justice. So we're just going to say no,
We're just going to put the name Chicago and it's
recognizable that font. It's fantastic. I wish I could come

(38:11):
up with a logo that good and that timeless, like
it's never going to change.

Speaker 4 (38:15):
I saw an interview with them where they felt like
the management was actually trying to keep them down by
not showing their face. Sure that way, if you you know,
if you suck, you're out of here. We replace you,
and nobody notices, right, I know that there were some
hard feelings there. Sure, All right, now, I want to
talk briefly about Chicago ten. Okay, because this is where
you have a fracture in what transpires with the band. Okay, Yes,

(38:37):
So in nineteen seventy six, you have a song that
is released that hits number one, and that song is
called if you leave Me.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
Now, If You'll take it.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
Now, If you were a Chicago fan in nineteen seventy
six and you heard this song, you might go, this
doesn't sound like my Chicago. This is a vallad, this
is a love song. What is this?

Speaker 4 (39:21):
I think all of the guys would agree it's a
beautiful song, But I'm not sure they were all excited
about what happened with this song.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
Yeah, I mean this one is Peter Setaria's first real song.
Like he's been singing with the band, obviously, but this
he hadn't written a lot. He had just been a
bass player and okay bass player, not a great bass player,
and okay bass player who had a good voice, and
so yes, he fits in the piece of the larger puzzle.
But he comes to them with this song and they

(39:50):
can't deny how good the song is. It's just not
their style, right, But they always said, you know, if
somebody comes with a song, we're gonna give it like Toto, right,
we will give it our best. We're not I am
going to say you do that on your solo project.
You know, we will all play as best we can
on your song, even if we don't really like it ourselves.
And most of them didn't like it. Turns out the
rest of the world disagreed with the band.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
That's exactly right. This song hits number one in October
of nineteen seventy six. Yeah, and from this moment on
they went from being a horn band to like ballad Town.
Ballad Town, that's a good name for it. Yes, let's
shift back to Chicago seventeen and go on to the
next song. Okay, this song is called Remember the Feeling.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
Shadows Hiding what I could See.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
Okay, whether you like ballad Town or you don't like
ballad Town, this song is freaking awesome. It's beautiful. I
can't believe this wasn't a single. I can't believe I
was not dancing with my hands on the hips of
some girl in ninth grade at the school dance taking
this song right, because this is another panty dropper.

Speaker 4 (41:08):
It is fantastic and you're right beautiful. How did this
not get released as a sing I have no idea.
When I'm listening to this. I was driving in my
car today and I'm listening to the lyrics. I'm thinking
people should play this at weddings and stuff. I mean,
it's so sweets great.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
Oh my Gosha.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
Comes from it was it to be.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
So this is another one written by Peter Setara and
Bill Champlain. Peter Stara, of course, is singing this song.
I still can't figure out how this did not I
mean with it, with the record companies as obsessed with
they were with them being a ballad town band. How
do they not release this? I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (41:55):
This song needs to be heard by more people.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
It does. It's incredible.

Speaker 4 (41:58):
Okay, man, love it. I was in my car today,
I'm like, liquid joy, liquid joy.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (42:08):
So after Chicago ten, you have the release of Chicago
eleven in nineteen seventy seven.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
So original follow me on this if you can. Okay.

Speaker 4 (42:17):
Then they have a song called Baby What a Big Surprise?

Speaker 6 (42:23):
Baby like a big sad.

Speaker 4 (42:30):
This is another Peter Sata song. It's another ballad town
song and guess what, it.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
Blows it up, blows it up.

Speaker 4 (42:37):
And I was thinking about this, I'm like, you know,
I knew some of the guys had hard feelings about
the direction that they were going, but it's kind of
hard to be mad when you're making money and you're
being successful, and you're being recognized and all these things
are happening.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
For you. Yeah, Le's they had a drug habit to feed.

Speaker 4 (42:51):
That's right, that's right. And you know I also saw
him Peter Stare talking about that. He's like, you know,
people thought we were clean cut and good guys, and
you guys, we were doing as much drugs as anybody.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Yeah. Yeah. Their producer actually built a ranch for them
to produce albums on, literally secluded from the rest of
the world, but not so secluded that the local college
kids couldn't come over and party with them and bring
all of the best marijuana, cocaine and LSD anything like that,
And they had a bank account at their disposal at

(43:23):
that point. It seemed like a good idea at the time, right.

Speaker 4 (43:28):
You know, Just a little tidbit on that particular studio.
The last album recorded there was a contemporary Christian classic
by Amy Grant, and then it burned down.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
Oh wow, oh my gosh.

Speaker 4 (43:39):
Okay, now, then, between Chicago eleven and Chicago twelve, we
have another major thing that impacts the future and direction
of Chicago. Yeah, why don't you tell us the story
of Terry Cath.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
Okay, So, Terry was a guy. I mean, so first
we've established that he is arguably one of the greatest
guitar players of all time. For Jimmy Hendrix to say
that you have to go, well, why why did he
say that? So he grew up. He started playing banjo
when he was a kid, but he had his mother
played the banjo, so he learned that from her. His
brother played I believe, the drums. He learned that, then

(44:14):
he picked up the guitar. I mean he basically he
could play anything. But his musical taste was also included
jazz and big band and all of these other different
genres of music, which made him an incredibly well rounded guy.
He had. His voice was this kind of soulful thing
that people would compare to Ray Charles. His guitar playing

(44:37):
was mirrored that of Jimmy Hendrix plus and he was
the driving force behind the band because his personality was
such that he live life on full throttle all of
the time right. And he loved riding fast on motorcycles.
He loved drinking, he loved doing drugs, and he loved
shooting guns. He was a hunter and a fisher and

(45:00):
he knew his way around guns, and all of those
things came together in a tragic moment. He was at
a party with one of the road crew, a guy
named Donnie Johnson, and basically they've not don Johnson, not
don Johnson, Donnie Johnson, donn it was done. Yeah, but anyway,
so it's wee hours of the morning, most of the

(45:22):
people have left. Terry gets out one of his guns
and starts cleaning it, and Donnie says, Terry, you've been
up for like hours, it's been a rough night. Maybe
don't clean your gun right now, And he, to show
Donnie that he knows what he's doing, takes the clip
out of the gun and he says, look, it's not
even look at the clips, not even loaded. Pulls the
trigger to show that it's not loaded. Well, when the

(45:43):
clip's not in it, the trigger won't fire. But there's
one in the chamber that he doesn't know about. Yeah.
He puts the clip back in, puts it to his
head to show him that they're that it's not loaded,
pulls the trigger, which works this time, and the one
in the chamber ends his life.

Speaker 4 (45:57):
Codem all right, hit stop on your tape player, kick
it out, flip it over for side two of Chicago seventeen.
This song is called Along Comes a Woman I Love

(46:18):
the song. I love this song. Oh it's great, great
pop song.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
It takes me right back to nineteen eighty five, it
really And so this one's got another video. I say,
turn and look over here. I'm like, there it is
right there. There's the Raiders poster right over there over
your shoulder. No, this is I mean, you know, Raiders
is based upon like the old Humphrey Bogart movies. And
basically they kind of said, well, you know, Raiders of

(46:42):
the Lost Arc was great, Let's do a video like that,
but let's do the throwback to the Humphrey Bogart style.
So it's all in black and white. Do you remember
the TV show The Wombles from the eighties.

Speaker 4 (46:52):
I do not.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
I didn't figure that you did. So the guy who
directed the video is a guy named Jay Duban, and
he also directed The Wombles, which I also had not
heard of. But I don't know that he's done anything else. Okay, step,
but this is a fun little video for a guy
who hasn't done anything else this.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
So, yes, we've talked several times. I think Hungry Like
the Wolf is a based on Raiders of the Lost Ark. Sure,
this is absolutely based on Raiders of the Lost Ark
and it transitions into Casablanca.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
Yeah. Right.

Speaker 4 (47:18):
So the director you mentioned, Jay Dubin who did the Wombles, Okay.
He also did Get Ready to Have Your Socks Blown
Off Here?

Speaker 1 (47:25):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (47:26):
So he did Uptown Girl, Tell Her About It the
Longest Time, those videos by Billy Joel Nice. He did
Private Eye. I Can't go for that and You Make
My Dreams Come True by Holland Oates Okay, okay. He
also did the Joe Piscopo Special.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
Okay. I guess that was before anybody figured out that
Joe Piscopo wasn't funny, right.

Speaker 4 (47:45):
He did the Diceman Cometh, the Andrew Dice Clay Special okay,
and he also did Tiffany at Disney World.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
Hey got to take the work when you Hey, I,
I mean, I would not complain if that is my
directing career. I wouldn't be happy with that, That's right.
That's right.

Speaker 4 (48:04):
So this song was released February of nineteen eighty five.
It reaches number fourteenth. This is the fourth single and
the final single with Peter setis the singer.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
Yeah It's crazy.

Speaker 4 (48:32):
By the way, in this video, I looked who is
the woman. Oh yeah, yeah, I wanted to know who
the woman is. Okay, so no real strong Well, nothing
verifiable on the internet about who she actually is, but
the urban legend is that it's Dorothy Mays. I showed
you a picture of Dorothy Mays.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
You did she forgot to bring her clothes.

Speaker 4 (48:52):
That would be miss July nineteen seventy nine.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
Uh huh, she's studying, sure is.

Speaker 4 (48:58):
I couldn't nail it down. I really wanted to pin
that down on her.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
But I would tell you whether I thought it was
the same girl in the video or not, but I
can't remember what her face looked like. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 4 (49:11):
By the way, the week that this song tops out
at number fourteen on the Hot one hundred, yep, you're
packed full of incredible songs, but at the top and
like immovable as we are the.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
World of course. Okay, So co writing credit on this
one Peter Setara and a guy named Mark Goldenberg. Mark
Goldenberg also co wrote Automatic by the Pointer Sisters. Oh
I love this song. Yeah, it's great. An another great
song from the eighties.

Speaker 4 (49:37):
From eighty forty five right around the same time. Yeah, exactly,
very good, all right, fun song, fun video.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
Absolutely love it. Yeah, so before we get to here, right, Okay,
So I got I've talked about Caleb multiple times. Right,
he's my head banging, hard hitting football Loven football Loven
and I'm driving in my car and he says, Dad,
can you put on this song? And I said, where

(50:04):
have you heard of this song? And he goes, Dad,
It's Chicago And I'm like, what, who are you? What
is it are you talking about? And so for him,
I cranked up. You are the inspiration.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
You know, love was meant to be? Kind of love
the last.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
D Wow.

Speaker 4 (50:36):
There are panty droppers and then there, I mean, this
is a Mount Rushmore makeout mixed song right here.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
Who was I can't remember who'said it? Maybe maybe it
was you that said it. There are painty droppers, and
then there are songs that as you're driving in the
car playing the song and the girl chases after you
with brows are painted at you.

Speaker 6 (50:55):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
That was me.

Speaker 6 (50:57):
I didn't say that.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
And the story behind is fantastic. And I know that
you've told me this story before, but did we tell
it on an episode or did you just told it? Okay?

Speaker 4 (51:15):
So yeah, we talked about it on our Best of
eighty four.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
Yeah, well go check out that episode, even though you're
probably gonna hear the story again. But this is such
a great story you got to tell it. Rice.

Speaker 4 (51:24):
So, Peter Sitara is at home one day and David
Foster calls him and says, hey, Kenny Rogers wants you
to write a song for me. We need to write
a song for Kenny Rodgers. And Peter Sitara is like, okay,
sounds good. I mean I'm leaving for Italy here in
a few hours, but I can do it maybe in
a couple of weeks. David Foster's like, no today now right.
Kenny wants it now, get in the car and come

(51:45):
over right now. He's like, I'm going to Italy. He's like, well,
I mean, I guess my plane doesn't leave for a
few hours, so I guess I can come by for
a little bit. So he drives over of the studio,
him and David Foster sit down, they kind of bang
out the bones of the song. He flies to Italy,
and then while he's in Italy he kind of finishes it.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
Up, thinking about Michael Angelo. You're the inspiration there.

Speaker 4 (52:07):
You go right well, for whatever reason, Kenny just kind
of falls asleep on it and passes on.

Speaker 1 (52:13):
It doesn't really do that.

Speaker 4 (52:14):
Yeah, right, and so Peter stairs like, okay, by me,
I'll grab this and turn it into a number three hit.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
Yeah. I mean, can you imagine if Kenny had done
this song? Would this have been another Islands in the Stream?

Speaker 4 (52:26):
I mean, yeah, it's a great song. Who knows what
could have done with it?

Speaker 1 (52:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (52:31):
So this was released October three, verse Halloween of nineteen
eighty four. It reached number three. It's such a great song.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
It's the other tempole of the album. You got a
tempole in the middle of side one.

Speaker 4 (52:43):
I got to roll through this top ten. I know
I've done this a couple of times, but.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
That's all right. We all love these songs and it
takes us back to this time. It's just what we're
here for. Okay.

Speaker 4 (52:51):
So we've talked about several of these songs. Number eleven
on the Billboard in January on January nineteenth of nineteen
eighty five. Number eleven is Sea of Love by the
Honey Drippers.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
Oh, Rubbert Plant spanned, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (53:05):
That's right, Robert Plant side project. Number ten is Careless
Whisperer by Wham.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Of Course, Fantastic Yeah.

Speaker 4 (53:13):
Number nine is born in the USA Springsteen YEP. Number
eight We Belong by Pat Benatar, Nice number seven The
Wild Boys by Duran Duran.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
Fantastic Yeah.

Speaker 4 (53:21):
Number six, Run to You by Brian Adams. Number five
Easy Lover by Philip Bailey and Phil Collins YEP The Phils,
The Phils. Number four I Want to Know What Love
Is by Foreigner.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
Oh my gosh, okay, oh my gosh.

Speaker 4 (53:36):
Number three Year the Inspiration. Okay, now pick out the
one that doesn't fit. Number two All I Need by
Jack Wagner.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
How does Jack Wagner keep popping up?

Speaker 4 (53:46):
It's like a bad penny.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
You don't always around.

Speaker 4 (53:49):
What this one song is always.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
Around Jack Wagner.

Speaker 4 (53:54):
Oh my god, go back to our Motley Crue Girls,
Girls Girls episode.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
He's come up multiple time. I can't figure it out.

Speaker 4 (54:01):
He inspired a song called You're All I Need by
Motley Crue where Nicky six wanted to kill him.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
Break his legs, just break his legs.

Speaker 4 (54:10):
And number one is Like a Virgin by Madonna.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
Well that's kind of a big, kind of iconic for
nineteen eighty five.

Speaker 4 (54:16):
Yeah, oh man, such a great song, you know, I
asked you when you look at the video. It's not
a great video.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
The acting in this terrible.

Speaker 4 (54:26):
And if you've ever wanted to see Billy Idol make
out with Madonna, you do get that in this video.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
It's not the actual Billy Idol or the actual Madonna.
It's just to look alike likes, yes.

Speaker 4 (54:35):
And they're all just kind of laying on couches while
they're playing this song. The video does not do this
song justice.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Yeah, what's weird is like Peter Satarra's bass is like
flipped upside down is yes, what I don't even know
what he's doing. It's weird.

Speaker 4 (54:48):
I would never have known that.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
Well, here's the and here's the story on that. Right,
So we talk about, you know, David Foster being the
guy that turned these guys around, right and made them
the hit monsters that would that came out of Chicago
sixteen and this album Chicago seventeen. He said that as
they're you know, as they're doing some recording on Chicago sixteen,
get done with the song and he's like, hey, Peter,

(55:10):
you hit the wrong note. It was a G, not
an F. You hit an F. We we need to
hit the G the next time we do this. Just
that's what you say as a producer. Right, he knows music,
he knows he's got the ear. This is why the
guy is getting paid. Right. Peter Seta comes into the
booth and is like, don't ever correct me in front
of the band again, and I'm not playing bass anymore.

(55:33):
You're playing bass. What it was that moment that these
guys started writing songs together, like somehow, that little that
little heated moment where David Foster is like, Okay, I'll
go play the bass better than you, and then somehow
that you know, this is kind of like the guys
on the football field when you hit hit a guy

(55:55):
hard and he comes back and hits you harder. You're like, Okay,
this guy's cool. Wow, yeah, good story. I like that one. Yeah, Okay,
going on the next song.

Speaker 4 (56:04):
I hate to leave this makeout class. Let's go on
in the next song.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (56:10):
This song is called Please hold On.

Speaker 6 (56:28):
You Love Me.

Speaker 1 (56:32):
So this is Bill Champlain singing yep, just Bill Champlain, yep,
none of the other guys. Written by Bill Champlain, David Foster,
and Linel Richie.

Speaker 4 (56:41):
Oh good good, I love that very good.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
It's kind of funky. I'm not I'm not skipping it.
It's it's eighties jazz, but it's it's more listenable than
some of the other ones. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (56:51):
I like Bill Champlin's voice.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
I do too.

Speaker 4 (56:53):
Yeah, And Lionel Richie knows how to write good songs exactly,
So it is David Foster, so it's Bill Champlin.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
Yeah, it works for me.

Speaker 4 (56:59):
Yeah, Okay, let's flip back to I'm going to talk
about Chicago twelve real quick.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (57:05):
Chicago twelve came out in nineteen seventy eight.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
But it wasn't call it Chicago twelve.

Speaker 4 (57:10):
Okay, it's called Hot Streets.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (57:12):
That record was not commercially successful. Okay, Right, so they
try again in nineteen seventy nine. This time they call
it Chicago thirteen. That album not commercially successful. Right, Let's
try again Chicago fourteen and nineteen eighty. We just did
our best of nineteen eighty nothing nothing, just three albums
a row, nothing crickets.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
Like these guys. These guys had reached the end of
their creative rope and the depths of their addictions, and
you know, they've been together for a long time at
this point, and things, you know, the relationship was sour
with a lot of guys.

Speaker 4 (57:47):
All good things must come to an end.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
Well, like I said for Columbia, that was true. Guys
were done. So they're dropped, dropped. Do Chicago fifteen as
the greatest hits. And then we get Chicago where they've
moved over to Irving azof who's got his own record
label that's a subsidiary of the Warner label, and they've
got David Foster in to help them rise from the ashes.

Speaker 4 (58:10):
So with Chicago sixteen, yeah, they're poised and ready, and
they release a song called hard to Say.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
I'm Sorry, I'm kind to say, arguably one of the

(58:44):
best opening verses of any song ever. That's great, It's devastating.

Speaker 4 (58:50):
This song is so good.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
So did you know they made this? They did this
for a movie? What this is? This is in a
movie before it Before It doesn't.

Speaker 4 (58:59):
That stupid Brian Adams movie.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
Isn't No No. This is an old Darryl Hannah movie
called Summer Lovers. Yes, okay, And literally you've got that
intro piano piano playing at this kind of pivotal moment
in the movie, and all of a sudden you hear
like this motorcycle revving up, and the motorcycle gets louder
and louder as the guy's coming forward, and they don't

(59:21):
even you don't even hear any of the lyrics of
the song. It's just like this brief little snippet of
this incredible song that the guys who are doing the
soundtrack to this movie are just idiots and just don't
take advantage of at all. But you know, it goes
on to be a number one song, so not too
bad Lands on his feet after all.

Speaker 4 (59:42):
So this song does hit number one despite the movie
people not knowing what the heck they're doing. Yeah, but
this is their big comeback, and you know what, big big, Yeah,
this after three albums of nothing, and you come out
and you go to Balladtown and it brings you a
number one hit and puts you back on your feet.
And with the record, you've got to go to Ballatown now. Yeah,

(01:00:03):
you have to say goodbye to the old stuff and
embrace what is new.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
Yeah. Well that didn't sit well with a lot of
the guys. Yeah, but they I mean, as one of
them said, it built the pool in my backyard, so
it's hard for me to be really better it's hard
for me to say, I'm sorry, right, right.

Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
I heard Peter Stara talking about in the Along Comes
a Woman video when they got together to kind of
talk about the ideas behind the video. The director didn't
well it wasn't super familiar with him whatever, and he's like, Okay,
who's the leader, And Peter Stair's like, well, I'm I'm
the lead.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Singer, right, and the guy the video director, I mean,
this is a reasonable question. He's like, I can't. I
can't put the camera on all seven of you for
this whole video. That just doesn't make any sense. And
because Satara is the lead singer, it makes sense that
the video would be more on him. Then, shortly after

(01:00:57):
that success, the obvious partnership between David Foster and Peter
Sittera and the continuous reduction in horn parts for the songs,
Peter Stera then says, guys, I feel like I should
be making more money than you. Yeah, And they're like, huh, okay,

(01:01:18):
this is a turn, and maybe he's right, maybe he
was right, but he rode the tales of their success
up until nineteen seventy six, so then.

Speaker 4 (01:01:28):
He carried them through the eighties.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
Well, he didn't like the whole band failed for a while.
He was a part of their resurrection. There's no question
about that. But I mean, I don't know. It's the
writing was on the wall that this was, this relationship
was about to end.

Speaker 4 (01:01:44):
I saw that he wanted to do a solo album
and kind of bounce back and forth, similar to what
Phil Collins had done with Genesis. Well, I look over there,
Genesis is fine. Phil Collins puts out a solo album,
He goes back to Genesis and it's all cool.

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
Right, It was not cool in Chicago.

Speaker 4 (01:02:03):
So they actually send him a letter is like ultimatum,
you're doing this or else. And so it was kind
of a did he quit did he get fired?

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
It's kind of both.

Speaker 4 (01:02:13):
They gave him an ultimatum and he didn't accept it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
And so what we get is the most successful album
of the band, followed by the departure of the singer
who made it that most successful album of the band.
So this is the last album that Chicago has with
Peter stra on it. And next week we're going to

(01:02:37):
be talking about Vital Signs, where Survivor now has a
brand new lead singer because they just lost their original singer,
So one last album with the singer and one first
album with the singer to compare it to R And
on that note, you know, once Peter Satara is gone,
they have to find a replacement for and the guy

(01:03:00):
that they have come is a guy named Jason Neff.
Has a great high pitched voice, plays the bass. Seems
like a great fit. As I mentioned before one of
our old Top Five episodes, Richard Page of Mister Mister
was on the list of possible people. But basically they
got it down to two people. And so they call
Jason neph and they're like, hey, twenty three year old

(01:03:20):
Jason Neff, who's not had any kind of success as
a musician at all other than small gigs. Right, it's
between you and one other guy. And he's like, awesome,
who's the other guy. It's Mickey Thomas of Starship. Okay,
so I'm not the guy there, right. He's like, listen,
you're not coming with any baggage, right, you didn't. You

(01:03:40):
haven't had a music career where you've got all these
other issues that have come up, and you have ways
of doing things. They like you, they want you, and
what they get is Jason Neff who then Chicago eighteen

(01:04:09):
another Penny dropper without Peter Sata. I guess they made
it work.

Speaker 4 (01:04:14):
David Foster went with Peter Sata to his solo album,
which seems like Peter kind of got him in the divorce.

Speaker 1 (01:04:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:04:21):
Then he bounces back to Chicago's like, hey, let's write
some more hit.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
Songs with this new guy. And they did, and they did,
and they did. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:04:28):
In fact, Chicago eighteen and nineteen are great albums, full
of great songs.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:04:34):
So some of the guys thought that Peter Sata was
a Prima Donna.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
Uh huh.

Speaker 8 (01:04:39):
Next song in the album is called Prima Donna.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
So this is by Peter Satira sa. I don't think
he was writing about himself, right. Also with Bark Goldenberg,
who were the guys who brought us along? Comes a
Woman and this is a song that could have been
a single, could have been a single.

Speaker 4 (01:05:08):
Could you see the song in Secret of My Success.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
Any number of eighties movies at the time. I'm sure
you see a video on MTV for it. I mean
it has all the markings. I don't know why they
didn't release it. It's fun, it is, It's a great
little song. Great another great example of the killer songs
on this album.

Speaker 4 (01:05:27):
Last song on the album is a song called Once
in a Lifetime.

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
This is another great song, man. I mean, I don't
know what to say on this other than I guess
when you have an album full of great songs, you
have to kill some babies. But this is again. Had
I heard this on the radio over and over like
I did in the mid eighties with Along Comes a
Woman and some of these other songs. I don't know
that it's gonna be a top ten song, but it's
a top forty hit. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:06:08):
You get David Foster, you get Peter sa Terra's voice, you.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Get this written by James Pankow, who had only written
one other co written one other song on this one,
which was not that great. But I don't know how
this one didn't make it. Well.

Speaker 4 (01:06:18):
I agree with you. This song could have easily been
a hit. But I'll tell you what was an unmistakable
hit was the first song that Peter Sitera released as
a solo artist in the summer of nineteen eighty six, Okay,
for the movie Karate Kid Part two, Right, That songs
called the Glory of Love.

Speaker 3 (01:06:35):
I could never make it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:01):
Okay. I feel like at this point you're looking for
any excuse to throw in more magical songs.

Speaker 4 (01:07:06):
Packing this full of magic. Do you know what movie
this song was written for?

Speaker 1 (01:07:13):
It wasn't written for Karate Kid.

Speaker 4 (01:07:14):
It was not written for Karate Kid too.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
I'm gonna go out on a limb here. Is Is
it a movie that's kind of related to the Karate Kid? Yes?
Is it a rocky movie? It is? Is it Rocky four?

Speaker 4 (01:07:26):
It is Sylvester Stallone listen to this song? Said nay,
it may be a little soft for a rocky I
think it is soft for rocky. Yeah, I think it
is more appropriate for Danielson.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
I think James James Brown was a better choice than
Peter Satara for Rocky. Peter Satra good for you know,
the young early twenties love Affair in Japan. Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 4 (01:07:51):
The song that got in instead of Glory of Love
to the Rocky four soundtrack, Heart's on Fire by John Parr.

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
There you go, it all comes full struggle. Yeah, John
Parr with the David Foster. It's great, great connection. There
you go. Okay, So that does it for Chicago seventeen.
Incredible album. I incredible. I can't figure out how another
album is going to compete with this, But you haven't
heard Vital Signs yet.

Speaker 4 (01:08:18):
Vital Signs has got some bangers.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
On absolute bangers. This is I just got to say,
this is not gonna be an easy choice for me.
I'm gonna go dive deep into Survivor. I'm going to
enjoy the amazing thing that is the Vital Signs and
they're going to come back and Jason and I are
going to tell you what we think the better of
those two albums are. So don't forget to hit that

(01:08:41):
subscribe button, that follow button. You can catch that episode
next week.

Speaker 4 (01:08:45):
See you guys back here next week.

Speaker 5 (01:08:47):
Thanks guys. So I better go get the manager.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
Oh my gosh, that is crazy. That could be an
out take.