Introduction

Introduction: A Rock'n'Roll Science Fiction

This is what you might call a "rock'n'roll science fiction" piece. This is, from the outset, a misnomer in that it has nothing to do with the "science" aspect of science fiction, but everything to do with the speculative nature of it. This is not about rock'n'roll musicians meeting with aliens or experiencing time travel (in the usual sense, anyway), but about alternate history, alternate timeline—a what-if story that imagines another possibility, another road taken, for a popular band facing one of the worst crises a band can face: the death of a crucial member at a time when the group's career was just beginning to flag, and at a time when the commercial world of rock itself was going through the jolting polar shift that punk and new wave were beginning to give it.

So though this piece steers clear of "science", it is fully and completely a work of fiction. I repeat this obvious fact for a few reasons. For one, the characters in this are real people, most of them still living, and facing the challenges that only a music career in the 21st century can offer. I have made a fiction of their very real lives, and have taken liberties in presenting their personal aspects based only on what I have read in articles and interviews—meaning, only the public and presented sides of their lives. The risk in doing this—in writing this piece of entertainment that is based on, yet departs from, reality—is that someone might confuse my imagined versions of the band members with their real-life counterparts. A bigger risk is that, in using such an emotionally charged situation as the jumping-off point for a story, feelings could be hurt or bad memories dredged up. It's my sincere wish that enough time has passed for all parties involved for this not to happen, and I've tried my level best to be as respectful as possible—without avoiding unpleasant details, some real, some not—to take the characters and situation with the seriousness they deserve.

Why such a story as "Intercession"?

I had a dream about it in 1979, when I was still in high school, and a devoted fan of Chicago. The death of Terry Kath was stunning and sad, as everyone knows, and as a fan of Chicago, I wondered what would happen next. My subconscious led me into a dream in which the band had been working on its most ambitious effort yet, a triple album that would restore their status as a force to be reckoned with—only to be scuttled by Terry's death. The dream presented the album as a troubled one—stories in the press of Kath beginning a solo album and possibly readying himself to leaved the band must have influenced me—and I saw the album cover art, the famed Chicago logo, as carved into a marble slab like a tombstone.

I awoke from the dream wishing that there were such an album, and began to transcribe what I could remember in a spiral-notebook journal. In the waking world, Chicago was making a genuine effort to rise from the dead, with a new guitarist, a new attitude, and an album that looked entirely different than anything that came before from them. The new music was refreshing, and I was glad that Chicago would not be over. But somewhere in my subconscious, I was mourning—that the type of band Chicago had been up to that point was undoubtedly gone forever. In my dream, I was struggling to capture one more piece of that band.

Theme and variation has always been a fascination with me, and Chicago's history certainly fed that fascination. From the Transit Authority era, through the stadium rock period, the Donnie Dacus years, a rejuvenation via David Foster, Stone of Sisyphus, and the ever-evolving version of the band as it is today, the Chicago story as it happened in real life is interesting to me in that it asks the questions: how can one thing become another? How can something add or subtract ingredients and still be called the same thing? Is it the same thing, or not? It might seem frivolous to make such serious conjecture about a rock band, but that dream came to me in the late Seventies, when I was still young enough to be so serious about such things—and considering how serious the rock press was at the time, I certainly wasn't alone in doing so. But in thinking about Chicago and how it can transform, change, disappear, rise from the dead—the questions raised could apply to anything. Yourself. Your family. Your country. Art, history, politics. Changes happens to everything and everyone. And when it does, what of us stays? What is gone? Can we call ourselves the same people, after a lifetime of experience? We can, and we can't, because both are true.

The original high school version of this story—which I didn't finish then—got lost over many years and many moves. But somehow, I couldn't quite forget it, or the feeling that the dream left me with. I decided to rescue it from my memory, and write it down with what I hope is a better rendering, from a more adult perspective.

I haven't bought every Chicago album in subsequent years, and there have been times where I've let them go from my playlist as my tastes ebb and flow over the years. Yet, I do keep coming back to them, and marvel that they are still going. I'm glad that they treated themselves to a project like Stone of Sisyphus, which in a way reminded me of what Intercession was supposed to be: music by the band, for the band, with the wish that an audience would follow along. I hope the band allows themselves such a luxury again some day. As they have their own record label, and internet releasing being what it is, I don't see why they wouldn't.

So: read on, and enjoy if you will. "Intercession" was written out of love and appreciation, and my hope is that it will keep you entertained for a little while, perhaps think about the winding changes you've seen in your own life, and maybe even to put onto your stereo whatever you consider the best of Chicago to be, and listen to it.

The Story of Chicago XII: "Intercession"

The Story Behind Chicago XII: Intercession – The Final Album By The Original Lineup of Chicago

Chicago XII is not Hot Streets, nor are the two albums related in any other way other than that they were made between Chicago XI and Chicago 13.

Though never quite finished due to a number of difficult circumstances, enough material had been committed to tape by the group to fill what had already been planned as a triple-disk set—their first (and last) ever.

After mediocre sales—and ever more tepid reviews—of their last effort (XI), the band reconvened to discuss the future of the group. Consensus was that, all around, there had been a flagging of energy, a falloff of momentum—and though they felt that the songwriting and performance on XI was artistically sound, the tracks lacked crackle, the running order felt slack somehow. Chicago were feeling their age as the seventies entered its autumn.

Too, the band had been feeling the sting of repeated criticisms that took them to task for being too slick, too commercial, too light—for being pop stars, radio balladeers, rather than artists and musicians. The band's pride reared itself up under such press, and was anxious to re-establish itself as a force to be reckoned with. Chicago wanted to return to the music world next time with a big splash—three LP's worth of splash, with enough inherent quality and pizzazz to draw a million buyers despite what would be a hefty retail price.

The album as it stands, pieced together, overdubbed, remixed, edited from rehearsal tapes and whatever completed tracks existed, is a strange, melancholy beast—the final work of eight unique individuals trying to reshape their image into something that represented each band member in a new and more sophisticated light. Problematic was that the individuals rarely saw eye to eye by the time sessions commenced, and the sprawling result was anything but a unified vision. Not every track succeeds in the way that the best Chicago tracks had previously—but when the music did gel, you could not turn yourself away, even if the sounds and feeling were at times disconcerting.

The overall tone of XII is very serious, intellectual, sometimes somber and even distraught; John Berg's cover art (his last for the group) depicts the ubiquitous logo carved into granite and bedecked with grim angels and filigree, as if some sort of tombstone for this incarnation of the band. Even the album title—itself a source of dissent among the group members—suggests a desperate plea for the gods to replenish the band with the inspiration that begat the group some dozen years previously.

"I still call it XII—Intercession was Danny's title." – Robert Lamm

Initial Band Meeting

The band convened at Caribou with Jimmy Guercio in August of 1977 to discuss their new direction, and plot a plan for writing new material. It was agreed that each member would contribute compositions this time around (Laudir included), and that each would do so with a mind towards stretching their capabilities, trying new techniques, exploring new moods, and in general regaining the experimental, exploratory attitude of the early CTA period. Arrangements would attempt to accommodate every member, and challenge each in a new way. Nightly jams would be held—and taped—in the studio barn, with an eye towards finding new, usable grooves and getting the band excited about playing together after the last draining tour they had completed.

All this sounded great at the outset, and initial sessions at Caribou found the members enthusiastically ribbing each other, urging each other on, and generally being supportive.

What they had not taken into account was the depth of the burnout factor they were already facing in the aftermath of years of drug- and alcohol-fueled partying.

First demos and rehearsal tapes

Robert Lamm's compositions tended to be created alone in his cabin, at the studio upright installed there at his request. Though he joined in the nightly jams, these tended to ramble, and proved less compatible to his preferred mode of working out lyrics and chords in private.

Terry Kath, though having collected a number of unrecorded tunes for an eventual solo album, used the jams as inspiration for completely fresh writing. His tendency was, if a particular groove interested him, to take a 7 ½ IPS tape back to his own cabin and flesh it out into a full-fledged song.

"It's not a matter of quality. The songs for my solo record are ones I would have never tried out on the band—[the songs] go directions I don't think would be satisfying for the guys. Some people would feel left out, for sure. I don't want to make anybody feel that. So that's why I'm hanging out at night here, trying to get the feel of everybody here, and use that to put some vitamins into some brand new stuff. And hopefully everyone will dig it." – Terry Kath

Perhaps most interestingly, Jimmy Pankow was interested in really stretching out the horn section by creating a new long-form masterpiece that would follow up his early ambitions with "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon". The new piece would try new voicings and use many multiple overdubs to create an expansive, overwhelmingly emotional sound.

"It's going to be more like a choir than a standard horn section," Jimmy enthused. "This will do for the horn section what 'Our Prayer' [The Beach Boys] and 'Bohemian Rhapsody' [Queen] did for vocals."

Would there be vocals and lyrics for the new piece?

"Vocals, for sure, but I don't know if I can—or even want to—impose lyrics on it at this stage. If there are vocals, they'll be voiced to complement the horns. The important thing here is the emotion of the thing—now this may not turn out this way, but my feeling is that words, lyrics, might limit the scope of the emotion. It might tie it down."

On the ground level of the barn, Danny and Laudir collaborated on a new piece that would use the drums and percussion as lead instruments, alternately—as each other's rhythm would provide support while the other is soloing. The big trick was, according to Danny, how to work the other guys' parts into the mix without them feeling just grafted on.

"We've got the core here," said Danny. "And I think what we're gonna have to do is bring that core to the jams and have the guys just try out some stuff over it. Whatever works, we'll rearrange it and work it in."

Laudir smiled with optimism: "Maybe the jams will turn out fine on their own. We'll just…edit some of it down in the end."

Peter Cetera, always brimming with the most pop sensibility, found the new directives a challenge. "I'm looking back to albums I like by other bands I love, albums where they took chances and moved new directions and still kept their integrity. And so far, my biggest inspiration is the Surf's Up album by The Beach Boys."

Why?

"Well, they—and I—seem to have become identified with bright, poppy kind of melodies, and this time around I want to make something more adult that still sounds pop. Without being lightweight, or whatever the critics are always saying. And Surf's Up is very much like that…it's not about surfing, it's very adult. And very artistic. So I'm keeping that in the back of my mind as I scribble down my new stuff."

Will you be using the word "mama" in any of your new lyrics?

Peter, laughing: "No! The guys have put a moratorium on that! And that's fine."

At this point, Lee and Walt had not actually written anything new—they seemed to be mentally taking notes at the nightly jams, and filing them away for imminent use.

Two weeks of this new work method passed by in this way, with a lot of new music—though much of it still half-formed—going down on tape. The September weather in the Rockies began to turn cold, and with it, the first indications of trouble came to the ranch.

The Guercio/Caribou Situation

What had been a continuation of the normally relaxed attitude of recording at Caribou became interrupted when, around this period, the band and its internal legal team decided not to renew Jimmy Guercio's contract as manager/producer for the next five years.

This immediately struck a bad chord with Guercio, as he also was the force behind the Caribou ranch recording facility. Tensions came to a head immediately, and recording—and the nighttime jams—were halted abruptly. After a particularly tense argument in the main lodge, band members quickly packed their bags and vacated the facility, flying back to Chicago (the city) to regroup.

Perhaps the most unfortunate fallout of this action was that the original 2" multitracks of the sessions thus far were retained by Guercio until monetary and legal situations could be sorted out. Chicago's band members were able to make off with various rough dub-downs (on half-inch tape—some running at 7 ½ IPS, some at a full 15) that they had been using as references to compose with. Ultimately, several of these rough mixdowns were used as basic tracks later overdubbed and included in the released version of XII.

After a week to resettle in their home city, the members of Chicago regrouped to assess their situation, and find a new location in which to continue the project. The use of New B. Ginnings was briefly considered because of its sound setup (and ownership by Danny and his partners), but it was thought that the band's presence would ultimately disrupt the club's momentum as a live performance venue, which—because of its outlying location—was already somewhat tenuous. Through Danny's connections, a new location—a warehouse on the South Side that had been used decades before as a rehearsal space for various big bands—was chosen for its size, its history, and its overall "vibe" of Old Chicago. Though it had not been used for musical purposes in some time, mobile recording equipment was quickly set up, and lounge furniture and a makeshift kitchen were installed with equal speed. The space—dubbed "Southside"—was ready for XII to continue its creative voyage.

Midwestern Fall: The Sessions Turn Chilly

Southside may have had atmosphere, but after the cozy comfort of Caribou, it quickly became a source of discomfort. Summer was over, and the cold snaps—accentuated by the sharp chill of the winds coming off of Lake Michigan—soon rendered the warehouse facility a large and frigid space to work in. Expensive, quiet heaters were brought in, but the interior space was cavernous and hard to bring up to a comfortable temperature.

Terry Kath's response was to jam vigorously—the power-trio rhythm section he'd used for "Uptown" on the previous album (Danny, Peter, and himself) became the driving force for a series of angry new jams that expressed Terry's inner frustrations with the space, the project, and even his place in the band itself. One particularly dark piece, entitled "Fuckin'", connoted a sweaty sexual workout; gone were the notions of free love that had informed his earliest songs—the "free" part remained, but the love had gone completely out of it. This was all about carnal strain—it resembled the darkest and funkiest of James Brown's music, and though the playing was crisp and tight, there was a bitter ugliness to it. Danny was happy enough with it, as it allowed him to get as creative as he liked with the rhythms and fills, but Peter backed away from the trio jams after a mere three days. "Terry's onto something weird," he said, and seemed unwilling to elaborate further.

In another corner, between jams, Jimmy Pankow continued to develop his horn-section masterwork, now graced with an actual title: "Aragon Dream – Parts I – V". "I was daydreaming about my parents, in the 40s—for most of their courtship, they went dancing to the old big bands at the Aragon Ballroom," Jimmy enthused. "The whole notion of the big band thing, and their romance, and how I'm now in a more modern version of a big band, just connects the generations in my mind. I'm trying to paint a picture that captures the rapturousness of that period, but using my own musical devices." This incarnation of the piece now incorporated Danny's drums, and a complex organ bass-pedal sub-melody played by Bobby—who had barely used the pedals since the band's pre-Cetera days.

As yet, Bobby's Caribou efforts remained fragmentary and unready for introduction to the band. Instead, he presented a reworked version of "I'd Rather Be Rich", left over from V; the lyrics vary somewhat, and the tape box title reads "Money Works Like Magic", but the bitter tone is retained, in this case accentuated with lines that reflect Lamm's disillusionment with the Guercio situation.

One Lamm riff left over from the Caribou jams was returned to in rehearsals—a fast, angry lick later to become "Manipulation" in fully fleshed-out form on Chicago XIV. Here, it's mostly the lick and the Steely-Dan-style descending chord progression as a break, over which Lamm mostly improvises lyrics—once again, reflecting business deals gone sour, obviously a fresh wound at this point. The tape box labels this as "In Your Pocket", and indeed, this is reflected in the one lyric line most often repeated on the rough versions taped here, and also the first line of the version completed later:
You thought you had me in your pocket, but I never could be bought

Seraphine and De Oliveira continued to rehearse their percussion piece, occasionally corralling Walt Parazaider to add some woodwind improvisations. Early tapes indicate more work would be needed for this to fully gel.

And Lee and Walt had yet to contribute new compositions, mainly content to decipher and perfect Jimmy's ambitious new charts for "Aragon".

Peter attended only about half the rehearsals at Southside, preferring to work out his new material in his residential digs on the west side. "Why?" he offered, "Because there's already too much going on at Southside. Either we all play together—which isn't happening that much yet—or we wait and take turns. You can't have more than one thing going on in a big open space like that. And besides, my fingers just get too cold there to play well for very long."

Cold as Christmas

The rent for Southside was cheap, the equipment a little less so, but the situation was such that, time-wise, the band were able to stretch out nearly as much as they had at Caribou. The main problem was…it wasn't nearly as comfortable, and Chicago winter was setting in.

It was mid-November by the time Peter brought some completed tunes in. The group gravitated towards three in particular—"I Found a Miracle In Her" was the brightest of these, the most upbeat, and the easiest to play. Pankow quickly dashed off a horn chart for it, and so far, this song most resembled the Chicago of old—if old meant the Chicago V or VI era. The only problem with this was…it stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the other material. XII was shaping up to be a major artistic statement, or at least that was the aim that had been agreed upon early on. "Miracle" was catchy and commercial-sounding—which didn't exactly fit with the goal. And Jimmy's horn charts, though perfect for the song, relied heavily on the sustained-4th-resolving-to-major-triad gimmick he'd been accused of overusing in many of his earlier arrangements.

Closer to remaining on-topic were "Collected Here", a reflection on past lovers and passed-on friends and relatives, and a melodic, melancholy piece musically; and "Someday When We Have The Time", which seems to equate the desire for personal fulfillment with that of the wish to realize the goals of the counterculture's best intentions—recalling Chicago's early career dedication to "the people of the revolution", which by the late 1970s had become a scattered and diminished effort. This latter tune is distinguished in that Peter plays piano himself on it, with the idea that Bobby would add keyboard flourishes later, along with "some baroque Terryisms laid on", in Peter's words.

Christmas approached, and it would soon be time to break for a much-wished-for holiday with local family and friends. It had been a tumultuous year, and the need for the comforts of home and hearth—especially after enduring the drafty spaces of Southside—were great.

Danny Seraphine suggested the band take whatever pieces were closest to completion and try them out on untested ears at New B. Ginnings between Christmas and New Year's, just to have some fun and "hopefully blow some minds in the process." The band threw a quick rehearsal on Boxing Day to whip the music into shape for the gig, and then proceeded to perform what was in essence a surprise gig—flyers had been sent around town only a day before the show, on one of the quietest days of the year.
"For the first time in a decade…The Big Thingggg!" This introduction brought a good amount of applause from the medium-sized crowd who'd trekked all the way out to Schaumburg in the post-holiday dead of winter to see some hometown heroes in a non-stadium setting.

"We're gonna lay a little something new on you now," said Terry, and the band kicked into their primitive version of "Manipulation", "In Your Pocket". Despite lyrics that were still not entirely finished—Bobby manfully extemporized some decent rhymes anyway—the crowd seemed pretty impressed. Then came Danny and Laudir's drum piece which, although accomplished, came off as overlong and trying on the crowd's patience. This was followed by "Money Works Like Magic", which just seemed like a downer.

Peter's "I Found a Miracle In Her" came next, and the mood lightened considerably, but then Terry took the band through "Fuckin'", which made room for a lengthy solo, and some not-especially-well-thought-out jamming, and though this actually spurred some dance floor activity, there was a definite feeling of energy depletion by the end of it.

This was not helped by an attempt to pull off Part III of Jimmy's "Aragon" suite with only the three horns, as opposed to the thirty or so that had been overdubbed on the studio version. The band looked under-rehearsed on this—and indeed, this was a quickly dashed-off arrangement that was new to everyone—and the complex, beautiful lines as originally written felt bare and sparse as presented here. The crowd listened, to be sure, but the applause felt polite rather than truly appreciative.

The guys looked around at each other as the clapping died down, and Terry suddenly launched into the opening chords of the very first CTA track "Introduction", the band taking his cue and kicking right in behind him. This worked like crazy, and the crowd roared to life. In fact, people continued to stream in from outside, and the place was soon packed and throbbing to the rhythm. This was obviously, as they say, where it was at.

The momentum kept going as the band tore through "I'm a Man", "25 or 6 to 4", "Feelin' Stronger Every Day", and a longish version of "Make Me Smile". The crowd brought them back for an encore of "Mongonucleosis" and the full version of "Questions 67 and 68", which brought the house down. The band decided this was the up note to leave everyone on, and they retired to a North Side bar to relax and celebrate.

This was the last real musical activity the band saw for 1977, not counting some bashing around at post-holiday parties. The feeling at the time was that the band would rest and recoup through New Year's, and then reconvene afterward during the first week of January.

First Band Meeting of 1978

On January 5th, Chicago members gathered at Robert Lamm's north side house to take stock of their work thus far, and finalize a timeline to complete the project. Several dub cassettes of rehearsals and rough mixes were brought and played before the group—and reactions were decidedly mixed.

What was meant to be a joyous post-holiday reunion, and a listen with fresh ears to the music they'd been working on for months, turned scattered and tense by the end of the party. This was not helped by the inclusion of family members and outside friends, who generally were kept out of situations like this in the past—their comments only brought frustration and anger to the musicians, who kept repeating "this isn't finished yet" to the room. Given the fractured nature of the project thus far, bringing non-bandmembers into the inner circle was a sure-fire recipe for hurt feelings.

And the fact that there was too much drink and powder being consumed only made matters worse.

Danny and Laudir, who up to this point had been happy with their pieces, now were cowed with doubt. Bobby was quiet about his own work, saying little or nothing, while Peter, happy enough with the progress made on his tune, plus the good crowd reaction at the club gig, still felt residual resentment from the others—they were trying to steer away from Peter's pop dominance with XII, and already they were being corralled back into it.

Terry seemed moodiest of all after hearing reactions to his rough mixes. "I dunno man," he said, trying to laugh it off. "Maybe these aren't working. But that's okay. We can always cook up a fresh batch of new jams, make something out of those." But his eyes told a different story.

A second meeting—at Peter's place—was held with no playbacks and no one from the outside. It was quick and to the point: what do we have to do to, a) fix what we've recorded so far, and b) finish these sessions off in a way we can deliver a cohesive finished product? An hour and a half wasn't exactly enough time to fully address all the issues for a project this sprawling, but the group decided they had enough ideas for the moment to re-enter the studio and get some work done.

Going South

Back at Southside, the members of Chicago set to work using a new game plan: one track at a time, with everybody contributing at the same time. No more fragmentation, no more people scattered to the far corners of the building (or Peter's house). It was time to finish the tracks, one by one, and regain the vibe of the group on each, in the process.

This was a great idea, and everyone was behind it. But the reality was: it simply couldn't quite work for every track. Peter's material came together quickly and easily—it was the simplest, the most friendly to live-band treatment, and some of it had already been worked out fully by the time the group played its post-Christmas club date. But Jimmy's piece—the gigantic, gorgeous, perhaps overly ambitious "Aragon" suite—still needed work. And as Jimmy had always been the architect of the horn voicings, it was difficult to rein in everyone else's ideas in a way that would fit his vision. In short, he still had a lot of lines to figure out so the others would have something to actually play during the overdubs. The situation became fragmented again very quickly.

Other times, the one-track-at-a-time concept was just a bit premature. Overdubs were made that didn't belong, didn't gel, didn't fit well with the feel of backing tracks that were recorded months ago—the feel they had at the time of recording was becoming a distant memory instead of a live, creative spark.

Terry made good on his idea of starting up some new jams to harvest songs from, but once again, using the whole band outright was simply awkward. The horn section had to improvise individually, as they could not play all at once without a chart and not step on each others' lines, killing the vibe. Terry's mood darkened even further as he realized this was not the kind of progress he had in mind. After the sessions, he would hang out in the late evenings with roadies and management, drinking, playing pool, snorting coke, and blowing off steam about how the whole project was turning out. Terry was getting re-excited about the notion of a solo LP, and threw together a few guys to rehearse some of the tunes he had stockpiled, to see how they played out.

Two full weeks were spent at Southside trying to rescue the tracks, but in the end, the band was physically and emotionally exhausted. Bobby Lamm openly questioned whether XII, in its current, gigantic form, was still worth pursuing. Maybe going back to working up a dozen or so fully-fleshed out songs—albeit in the stylistic direction they wanted to go, regardless of pop chart concerns—might be a better path to take. Other members agreed, still others dissented, one or two simply kept quiet and offered no opinion either way.

It was time for a short break. Peter simply went back home, Bobby took his family to New York for a short vacation, and Terry headed out for sunny LA (which, in January, was always something of a crap shoot—it would still be in the thick of the rainy season.) The others remained in town and socialized, waiting to see what happened next.

The Unthinkable

The next thing to happen was a blow that not only would cripple the XII project, but the band itself, and possibly its entire future.

After a couple of weeks of hard partying with friends in the west part of the San Fernando Valley, Terry Kath accidentally shot himself in the temple. He died on site, and Danny Seraphine arrived in the aftermath of it all to find his friend lying motionless on the couch. The ambulances came, the police checked out the situation fully, and the news began to report that the longtime guitarist for the rock group Chicago had gone.

The band reconvened in L.A. for Terry's funeral, and drowned their sorrows in booze and cocaine. The struggles, the fights, the bad feelings, the frustration—all of the tensions that had been building for almost a year in the making of the Chicago XII project –ended in a cloudburst of sorrow. If they had been unsure of their direction so far, they were now out-and-out rudderless. Nobody knew what to do, whether to continue the band or not.

At Terry's funeral, Tonight Show bandleader Doc Severinson urged Danny and a few of the others not to disband—he has often been quoted as saying "the world needs your music now more than ever." But what music was that? The early jazz-fusion they seemed no longer able to play? The pop confections that sold well but left some members—so accomplished, so creative—little to bring to the party? The new, experimental pieces that they could not bring themselves to agree on, to finish?

There was no way to go back to the material of XII at this point. Just listening to the tapes left everyone feeling depressed and miserable. They were still mourning Terry's loss, and would continue to do so for months to come—in some cases, forever after. Nobody wanted to siphon their songs off to re-use elsewhere—not yet at least. It was like the project was a giant 747 that had crashed—it seemed like the only decent thing to do was to pick up the pieces and bury them, forget about them.

The tapes were collected together and locked in a Columbia Records vault, along with John Berg's prototype of the tombstone-style cover art. (The only material not collected was the original batch of 24-track masters still at Caribou in Guercio's possession.)

Chicago talked very little to the press about the abortive XII project, instead opting to lick their wounds in private, and figure out a new way to keep the band alive. Everything about XII was packed away, even the number itself: it was decided that whatever the next album might be, it would not have a number for a title. (And with the release of Hot Streets, the band made good on their promise.)

And from this point on, the story of Chicago's resurrection—actually many, many resurrections—is well-known. Another attempt to reclaim their own creative control came during one of these latter-day Chicago incarnations—one in which Terry, Peter, and Danny were all gone—in the form of a single-LP project called Stone of Sisyphus. Unlike XII, Sisyphus was finished, mixed, mastered and ready to go—except that the record company wouldn't put it out. It sat on the shelf for years before finally finding release through Rhino Records, which had just finished a series of Chicago reissues that sported bonus tracks (none from XII, of course) and thoughtfully-written liner notes.

Intercession: Exhumation

Rhino's A&R department had a Chicago superfan or two in its ranks, and in the course of the reissues, the topic of XII was breached. Most of the department hadn't heard of it, and even the superfans only had scraps of info about it—they had no idea how much or how little there existed of the project, or whether it had already been reabsorbed into later releases.

Of course, any discussion about the release of Chicago XII would raise the obvious hurdle of having to contact all the remaining original band members in order to release it, let alone the idea of prying the long and painful story out of each of them. The project represented the band's unhappiest time ever, capped by the tumultuous event that they all struggled with ever since. To say that this would be difficult and emotional was about as understated as anything could get.

And yet…

Nearly thirty five years had passed. There would always be some degree of pain associated with the music, but the passage of time had been long, and the degree to which the material itself was attached to the hearts of its makers was great. It had been an attempt to reclaim their creative crown during a time that all the original members were still present, and a time that they were in serious danger of losing everything as it was, both creatively and commercially.

The heads of Rhino met with representatives of Columbia (the same ones dealt with during the entire reissue process), and discussed the possibilities of an archival release. The tape were located—still in perfect condition in their Hollywood temperature-controlled vault—and digital reference copies were made at a local sound studio. (The 24-tracks stored at Caribou, however, were among the many lost during the infamous ranch fire of March 1985.)

It was decided by everyone—Rhino, Columbia, the band itself—that the best baby-step to take was to have everyone in the band review the tapes. And they did: individually, privately. Each member faced an emotional experience without compare—why complicate the matter by debuting the tracks with everyone in the same room, when their had already been such tumult over the years?

Miraculously, each player to a man declared that the emotions brought out most by the tapes were ones of good feeling—the spirit and adventurousness that they had intended for the project at the outset were what they felt hearing the playbacks now. Whatever degradation the project brought over the long months of 1977 had fallen away and given over to a professed love for the tracks themselves, however flawed, however unfinished. Jimmy sounded overjoyed to be revisiting the beloved suite he meant to honor his parents by. Danny, and Laudir (phoning in from faraway Brazil), instantly recognized the joy and fun they had cooking up their new rhythms. Peter breathed a sigh of relief that the songs he'd had to leave behind could now be rescued and polished off for the world to hear. And everyone—everyone—fell over themselves listening to Terry's jams. Some of the tracks may have sounded like downers in 1977, but now they were heartfelt reminders of what Terry was like as a person, as an artist. Hearing his laugh, his count-in's, his between-take suggestions for what direction to take things—all of these became return visits of the friend they'd missed so much over the decades. ("That song 'Fuckin'', of Terry's," said Jimmy Pankow, "I think he called it that because, man, it's 'fuckin'' great!")

Bit by bit, progress towards a restoration of the album was made. Phone calls between the band members went well for once—Peter and Danny sounded anxious to get involved, and the others seemed happy to welcome them back. Two months were set aside at the Los Angeles studio Ocean Way to make digital work copies, clean up the existing tracks, and begin the elaborate process of overdubbing, editing, and mixing the hours and hours of material into a series of three discs with a total run time of around 3.4 hours.

The "Aragon" suite received the most new overdubs—Jimmy Pankow had long since finished his charts for the piece in private, and the new recording went quickly and easily as a result. Most emotional was the recording of the wordless choral vocals Jimmy had envisioned all along for the piece—laid down by Bobby, Peter, Lee, and Jimmy himself, standing in for Terry. This was the first time Peter had performed with the others since the mid-1980s, and the resulting vocal blend held them in awe during the final mix playback. "Aragon" is easily the centerpiece of the album: gorgeous, ethereal, and evocative of an entire era long since gone from the American scene.

The completed package—for the CD, BluRay, and vinyl editions—includes Berg's original cover, a 24-page illustrated booklet covering XII's entire fall-and-rise saga, and a large poster of the entire original group, posed against the chilly backdrop of the Southside rehearsal studio. Should the limited edition sell out, Rhino plans a wide-release version to appeal to more mainstream Chicago fans who wish to return to the group's original lineup for one final encore.

 
Chicago XII is many things: glorious, tragic, radiant, sad, complex, primal, but above all, the final testament that does strange and complicated justice to a group of guys that simply loved the hell out of music, and wanted to share that love with an audience of millions.

Now that the work is complete, in stores, and in the players (and hearts) of Chicago fans everywhere, what will the original members do next?

"We don't know yet," said Robert Lamm. "We made it through all this, so who knows. It's been one big miracle for us, that we were able to revisit this, let alone put it all out."

"It's too early to say what else might come of this," laughs Peter Cetera, "but at least it got us talking again. It got us hanging around each other again. And that's a good thing. Real good."

Yes it is.