Chicago Issues Brilliant Archival 1971 Kennedy Center Live Album
by Best Classic Bands Staff
Chicago has dipped into its archives to issue a brilliant, previously unreleased 1971 performance in Washington, D.C. Chicago At The John. F. Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts, Washington D.C. (9/16/1971) arrived on September 27, 2024, from Rhino, on 4-LPs and 3-CDs. It’s available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here.
This 26-track live collection was recorded on September 16, 1971, about a week after the venue opened in the nation’s capital. For more than 50 years, the concert has remained unreleased except for the performance of “Goodbye,” which debuted in 2018 on Chicago: VI Decades Live. [Ironically, it was Best Classic Bands that premiered the track at that time.]
Chicago was one of the first groups to perform at the Kennedy Center. That historic concert has been newly re-mixed from the original multi-track tapes by Chicago founding member and trumpeter Lee Loughnane and engineer Tim Jessup. The Kennedy Center performance includes more than two hours of live music by Robert Lamm (keyboard, vocals), Terry Kath (guitar, vocals), Peter Cetera (vocals, bass), Danny Seraphine (drums), Loughnane (trumpet, vocals), James Pankow (trombone), and Walt Parazaider (woodwinds, vocals).
From the August 2 announcement: The show explores all three studio albums that Chicago released since their 1969 debut. The songs span a range of styles, underscoring the band’s ability to blend genres seamlessly. There are rockers (“25 or 6 to 4” and “I’m A Man”), ballads (“Colour My World” and “Beginnings”), jazz-influenced tracks (“Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?”), and extended song suites (“Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon” and “It Better End Soon”). See the complete track listing below.
The band would begin recording Chicago V a few days after the performance. Released in July 1972, the album marked a significant evolution in the band’s sound and would become Chicago’s first #1 album. To get ready for the studio, Loughnane says the band road-tested some new songs in D.C. “Case in point: we did ‘Saturday In The Park’ for the first time at the Kennedy Center show. You’ll notice that we hadn’t yet decided on who would sing the lead vocal. Also, Robert hadn’t written Part 2 of ‘Dialogue’ yet.”
Listen to their debut performance of “Saturday In The Park”
Listen to the band’s blistering performance of “25 or 6 to 4”
Chicago is touring this fall. Tickets are available here.
Related: Listings for 100s of classic rock tours
Chicago at The John. F. Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts, Washington D.C. (9/16/1971)
3CD Tracklist
Disc One
Tune Up & Band Introduction
“Dialogue”
“Loneliness Is Just A Word”
“Poem For The People”
“A Hit By Varèse”
“Lowdown”
“Goodbye”
“Beginnings”
Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon
“Make Me Smile”
“So Much To Say, So Much To Give”
“Anxiety’s Moment”
“West Virginia Fantasies”
“Colour My World”
“To Be Free”
“Now More Than Ever”
Disc Two
“Fancy Colours”
“It Better End Soon”
“1st Movement”
“2nd Movement” (Flute Solo)
“3rd Movement” (Guitar Solo)
“4th Movement” (Preach)
“5th Movement”
“Saturday In The Park”
“Mother”
“In The Country”
Disc Three
“A Song For Richard And His Friends”
“Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” (Free Form Intro)
“Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?”
“I’m A Man”
“Free”
“25 Or 6 To 4”
All songs previously unreleased except “Goodbye.”
6 Comments so far
Jump into a conversationInteresting to see a few songs from Chicago V showing up here, almost a year before that album was released.
Oh please! All these old bands are now releasing “live” tracks because with AI they can separate & clean up the stems. So they end up sounding way better than they actually were – hence they are putting out “lost” or “never released” live performances. Yes, there was a reason they were never released but we’ll never hear it!
Well the version of Saturday in the park sounds great…brings me back to 8th grade…love that tune
Leads me to remember hearing on the way down from West Hartford to the Bronx for a Saturday game. Never made it to the park, but we partied with every cabbie who dropped in to the bars we drank in for a quick shot. We had SITP on heavy rotation, believe that.
Great concert and appreciate Lee putting this out. But I hear some scratchy background noise on some of the tracks. Are others hearing the same thing?
Yeah, something is up with Terry Kath’s vocal mic and they decided NOT to use the right modern tools to make it right.