Chicago has three original members left as they approach their 60th anniversary in 2027, which is an impressive statistic. But even when those players eventually step away, it’s very likely that the group will continue.
The band’s trumpet player, Lee Loughnane, 78, is a co-founding member alongside keyboardist and vocalist Robert Lamm, 80 and trombonist Jimmy Pankow, 77. For Loughnane, it makes a lot of sense that the group could survive in the absence of its most familiar players. “I don’t see why it won’t continue onward, in the fact that the music has really sustained us,” he shared during an interview on the UCR Podcast. “That’s really why we’re still on the road.”
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Lamm addressed the subject similarly during a 2018 interview. “I think there’s a feeling about that among the guys who would be left who are in the band,” he said then. “I think there’s a feeling that instead of being just Chicago, it’d be like the Chicago little symphony, if you will. Players go in and players go out. So I think that’s a possibility, yeah.”
The keyboardist missed some of the band’s gigs in recent years due to a combination of health issues including vertigo and ear inflammation. During the 2024 tour, he was often prominently on stage to sing his most beloved compositions, but let band member Loren Gold handle the keyboards for the group’s other material. Loughnane and Pankow also have substitute players who have filled in when they’ve been unable to be there.
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But Loughnane, in particular, remains fiercely dedicated to the integrity of the performances that the band — now a 10-piece unit — delivers on stage. “Who knows why [the fans] come to the show,” he tells UCR. “They might come to see these guys who have been together so long. I want to see how bad it’s going to be. They can’t possibly be better than they were when [we] were kids.”
“When they find out we can still play well and it’s a really good show, they want to come back again,” he continues. “This has happened where we inspired other generations of people to come in, even when they couldn’t admit to their friends that they liked us. They liked it and came to the shows. So it’s really, I think, attributed to the music and how we perform consistently year after year.”
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During an interview last year with Billboard, the trumpet player said they had a few inspirations that helped contribute to their longevity. “The big bands, the Count Basies and Duke Ellingtons, they went until they dropped,” he shared. “They kept working until they couldn’t and passed on to the next life, if there is such a thing, and there are still versions of those bands out there playing their music. They never stopped. That definitely made an impression on us.”
Chicago & Friends: Live at 55, is the band’s newest release, featuring an all-star cast including Chris Daughtry, Steve Vai, Robert Randolph and more. The expanded ensemble helped the group power through more than two and a half hours of material during performances in Atlantic City, all centered around the 55th anniversary of their 1969 debut, Chicago Transit Authority.
As far as another album of new studio material to follow 2022’s Born for This Moment, Loughnane says it’s likely. “There’s songs being written,” he confirms. “There aren’t any plans right now specifically to go in and record together…time will tell, [but] we’ll keep working at it. That’s for sure.”
Listen to Lee Loughnane’s Interview on the ‘UCR Podcast’
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Gallery Credit: Allison Rapp
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