Chicago - Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX, 3-17-1971

Here's another nice guest post. About a month ago as I write this in late March 2026, a frequent commenter named Sax and Guitar helped me post a collection of TV appearances by the Rascals (a.k.a. the Young Rascals). He's expressed doing more, so hopefully this is just the beginning. With the Rascals one, I happened to have my own version the album he had in mind basically done already. But in this case, pretty much everything was done by Sax and Guitar. He came up with this concert, and did a lot of careful editing to get it just right. (And it needed some help.) About the only thing I did was offer some suggestions, plus making the cover art. So, thanks again, Sax and Guitar.

On top of everything else, Sax and Guitar has written extensive notes, which are included in the download zip file. So I'll leave most of the commentary to him. But I'll just note that this is an unreleased soundboard recording, all from one show, except for the last two songs, which come from a different show from the same era, to complete their typical set list from this time period. And while I've posted two Chicago concerts from 1969, and one from 1970, it's nice to get one from 1971 as well. Those early years were their best years, in my opinion.

This album is an hour and 46 minutes long.  

01 Listen (Chicago)
02 talk (Chicago)
03 Happy, 'Cause I'm Going Home (Chicago)
04 Poem for the People (Chicago)
05 Lowdown (Chicago)
06 Free Form Piano Intro [Instrumental] (Chicago)
07 Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is (Chicago)
08 Sing a Mean Tune, Kid (Chicago)
09 Ballet for a Girl from Buchannon (Chicago)
10 Fancy Colours [Edit] (Chicago)
11 talk (Chicago)
12 Elegy Suite [Instrumental] [Edit] (Chicago)
13 Beginnings (Chicago)
14 I Don't Want Your Money (Chicago)
15 talk (Chicago)
16 Loneliness Is Just a Word (Chicago)
17 talk [Edit] (Chicago)
18 A Song for Richard and His Friends [Edit] (Chicago)
19 25 or 6 to 4 (Chicago)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GHuEnPXu

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/m9e8r1RIedJIRO1/file

The cover photo is from a concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in 1971. Most, but not all of the band members, are shown.

Chicago - PBS Soundstage, Park West, Chicago, IL, 6-2003

Here's another episode of the excellent "PBS Soundstage" TV show. This one stars the band Chicago.

By 2003, the band was long past their 1970s heyday, and they'd lost some key members. It's too bad the show couldn't have had them on during that decade. But still, it's a solid bunch of classic songs. And I'm posting pretty much all the Soundstage episodes I can find, so I'm posting this one too.

If I recall, this is from a DVD, so it's longer than the usual episodes for this show. And that also means the sound quality is excellent.  

This album is an hour and 22 minutes long. 

01 Make Me Smile - So Much to Say, So Much to Give (Chicago)
02 Anxiety's Moment - West Virginia Fantasies - Colour My World (Chicago)
03 To Be Free - Now More than Ever (Chicago)
04 talk (Chicago)
05 If You Leave Me Now (Chicago)
06 Dialogue (Chicago)
07 talk (Chicago)
08 Hard Habit to Break (Chicago)
09 Saturday in the Park (Chicago)
10 Beginnings (Chicago)
11 Just You 'N' Me (Chicago)
12 talk (Chicago)
13 Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is (Chicago)
14 Feelin' Stronger Everyday (Chicago)
15 I'm a Man (Chicago)
16 Hard to Say I'm Sorry - Get Away (Chicago)
17 Free (Chicago)
18 25 or 6 to 4 (Chicago)
19 talk (Chicago)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wLLgZpQj

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/eeX7HnPFOy1vwPM/file

The cover photo is a screenshot from a video of this exact concert.

Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, Varsity Stadium, Toronto, Canada, 9-13-1969, Part 1: Chicago

It's time to post another big and famous rock festival. This one is the "Toronto Rock and Roll Revival" festival from 1969. It has a fascinating history, and was particularly important for the music careers of the Beatles, most especially John Lennon. Some music from it has been lost, or at least isn't publicly available, but I was able to gather up the vast majority of music from the important acts with good to excellent sound quality. Most of this has been gathered together before, but I was able to make drastic sound quality improvements to most of the music. There's enough for eight albums, presented in the correct chronological order. Here's the first one, Chicago. (Just for that year, they were known as "Chicago Transit Authority.")

Before I get to talking about the music on this album, I find want to set the scene of the festival as a whole. I found an article with an excellent summary, so I post a section of that here:

Promoters John Brower and Kenny Walker, fresh off producing a two-day event at Varsity Stadium at the University of Toronto that June, were intrigued by an event held a few weeks earlier in Detroit. Billed as the First Annual Rock and Roll Revival, the gig featured local heroes the Stooges and the MC5, along with Chuck Berry, the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, and Dr. John. Could they pull off something similar in Toronto?

They set about planning the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, focusing on booking acts from the early days of rock and roll. Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley, Screaming Lord Sutch, and Gene Vincent were contracted to perform. A new group called the Alice Cooper Band signed on for double duty. Not only would they get their own set, but they would act as the back-up band for Vincent. The Chicago Transit Authority (later just plain Chicago), brought some jazz-rock fusion to the bill. The Doors were brought in as headliners at great expense.

A stellar lineup in retrospect, but at the time no one cared. Advance ticket sales were awful. When backers George and Thor Eaton (owners of a Canadian department store chain) pulled their support, Bower and Walker, now deep in hock and facing total financial obliteration, came close to cancelling the show.  

Here's the link to the whole article:

https://globalnews.ca/news/5855287/toronto-1969-music-festival-beatles-john-lennon/

And while I'm at it, here's the Wikipedia page about this festival as a whole:

Toronto Rock and Roll Revival - Wikipedia 

At this point, the producers were desperate. To at least break even, they needed to sell 9,000 tickets out of the 20,000 available for the venue, but so far they'd only sold 2,000. The problem was the 1950s stars making up most of the festival were considered has-beens in 1969. (This concert would be the start of a revival of 1950s rock music that would get a lot bigger in the 1970s.) And the main headliners, the Doors, were at a low point in 1969, due to lead singer Jim Morrison getting arrested for public indecency earlier in the years. Most of their concerts that year had to be cancelled altogether.

But then, producer Kim Fowley, who had been hired to be the official emcee of the event, had an idea: why not call up John Lennon of the Beatles and see if he'd want to attend the concert? After all, the lineup was packed with his musical heroes. The promoters didn't dare hope that he would actually perform, since none of the Beatles had been performing live since 1966. But they hoped that his mere presence would create excitement and boost ticket sales. Promoter John Brower later said, "It sounded like a Hail Mary. Which it was."

Brower managed to reach Apple Records in the middle of the day on September 12th, London time, only a day before the concert. Luckily for him, Lennon happened to be there. Even more luckily, a journalist from Toronto named Ritchie Yorke happened to be in the building, waiting to interview George Harrison. Lennon knew Yorke was there, and was from Toronto, so he found Yorke and asked him about these promoters who were calling. Yorke was able to confirm they were legitimate promoters who had a good track record. Brower later said, "Had Ritchie not been at Apple, John Lennon might have thought that we were just a couple of crazy kids calling him on the phone."

Brower told Lennon about all the 1950s stars already signed up, knowing those were his musical heroes, and asked Lennon to be the emcee. Lennon got excited. "Really? You have all these acts?" Brower replied, "Yes. I can't pay you, but I can get you first-class plane tickets." To Brower's very great and happy surprise, Lennon replied, "Yeah, I'll come, but I want to play." He didn't even ask to be paid.

I'll explain more about what happened with Lennon and his performance later. But due to Lennon's participation, it was decided not to cancel the festival after all. The only problem was, nobody could really believe that Lennon was going to show up, much less participate. It was common for rumors to spread about famous guest stars showing up at rock festivals at the time. Often, promoters pushed outright lies like that to boost ticket sales. The Toronto mainstream media assumed that was the case here, since having Lennon perform seemed so unbelievable. To make matters worse, Brewer was known for previously lying about Beatle George Harrison attending a Toronto movie premiere he was promoting in order to boost disappointing sales.

Brewer even went to the manager of the most popular rock radio station in Toronto and played him a recording he'd made of a phone call to a secretary at Apple Records to prove that Lennon was coming. The manager assumed the recordings were fake since the call was to a woman, who could have been anybody, instead of one of the earlier calls with Lennon himself. (Apparently, Brewer didn't think to record those calls.) The recording added that guitar hero Eric Clapton would be playing with Lennon as well, which made the claim seem even more improbable. Just to be sure, the manager called up Allen Klein, who was kind of managing the Beatles at the time, and asked if this story was true. Things were moving so fast that Klein wasn't aware of what Lennon was doing, and stated that the Lennon would not be coming. Thus, the manager refused to play the tape recording on air or otherwise promote the festival. 

Thus, by the time the festival started, ticket sales were still disappointing. However, a radio DJ in Detroit believed Brewer and heavily promoted the festival, telling the audience that Lennon (and Clapton) would perform. So that meant more than half of the tickets were sold by the time the festival started, mostly consisting of people from Detroit. 

Chicago wasn't the very first act to go on stage at the festival, but they were one of the first. Keep in mind that while their debut album, "Chicago Transit Authority," had been released in April, and it had been critically acclaimed, sales were slow at first. Only one single was released from this album before this festival happened, "Questions 67 and 68," and that only made it to Number 71 on the U.S. singles chart. Another single, "Beginnings," would be released a month later, and it wouldn't make the singles chart at all. Only later, after the band's sales soared in 1970, were those two singles re-released, finally becoming big hits.

Note that there are some other bands who performed where I wasn't able to find any recordings of them from this festival at all: Whiskey Howl, Milkwood, Flapping, Nucleus, Junior Walker and the All Stars, Doug Kershaw, Gene Vincent, and Screaming Lord Sutch. The first four names I just mentioned were Canadian acts. It would have been especially nice to have recordings of Junior Walker and the All Stars and Gene Vincent, since they are well known names, but alas, I couldn't find any. Milkwood, Doug Kershaw, and Gene Vincent performed much later in the show. I don't know about the timing of the other acts, except that Nucleus went on first.

The festival started around ten in the morning. Although I don't know the exact timing of the acts, I'm pretty confident that when Chicago went on stage, it still wasn't confirmed that Lennon would be attending. The confirmation came when Lennon gave a quick press conference in London right before he got on a plane to cross the Atlantic Ocean. That took place about two in the afternoon, Toronto time. Thus, when Chicago performed, there were about 5,000 unsold tickets out of 20,000, so it was still a pretty good crowd.

There are many great rock festivals that are all but forgotten today due to a lack of audio and/or video recordings from them. But in this case, we got lucky because D. A. Pennebaker, who had already made the documentaries "Don't Look Back" about a 1965 Bob Dylan tour and "Monterey Pop" about the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, decided to make a documentary about this festival too. It would be released in 1971 under the title "Sweet Toronto." Because of Pennebaker's involvement, the performances of most of the artists were recorded and filmed with soundboard quality, although only a couple of sets have been officially released.

This Chicago set has been released, kind of. I believe it's only come out as a "grey market" release, meaning it's one the band didn't approve and doesn't get any profits from (thanks to loose copyright laws in Europe). I found a couple of versions, and used the best one. This appears to be a soundboard source. However, the vocals were mixed low. I boosted them for all the songs with the use of the UVR5 audio editing program. 

Another problem was the last song, "Beginnings," faded out with less than a minute to go. I found another soundboard bootleg of a concert in San Francisco from the same year and used that to patch in the missing portion. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title. 

Yet another problem was that there often wasn't a reasonable amount of time for cheering at the end of each song. So I took bits of applause that did exist from some ends of songs and patched them in to the ends of other songs. There should be a more natural flow from song to song now.

By the way, in addition to the 1971 "Sweet Toronto" documentary mentioned above, in 2022, a new documentary movie about the festival was released, called, "REVIVAL69: The Concert that Rocked the World." It uses lots of footage from the original documentary, plus footage of Lennon's set not allowed in the original, plus interviews with surviving musicians. I highly recommend it.

Here's a review of the documentary in the Guardian, which also provides more interesting stories about the festival:

The other 1969 concert that changed music: ‘one of the most important stories in rock history’ | Documentary films | The Guardian 

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 talk (Chicago)
02 Introduction (Chicago)
03 South California Purples (Chicago)
04 talk (Chicago)
05 25 or 6 to 4 (Chicago)
06 Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is (Chicago)
07 I'm a Man (Chicago)
08 Questions 67 and 68 (Chicago)
09 Liberation [Instrumental] (Chicago)
10 talk (Chicago)
11 Beginnings [Edit] (Chicago)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/9J7NxMWL

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/ATu1bZHxopXYYDR/file

The cover photo of singer Peter Cetera is from this exact concert. It's a screenshot I took from one of the documentaries about this concert. 

Texas International Pop Festival, Dallas International Motor Speedway, Lewisville, TX, 8-30-1969, Part 1: Chicago

Many months ago, in late 2024, I got everything ready to post the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival here at this blog. But I've been putting it off and putting it off, because it's a lot to deal with. I have no less than 19 albums to post from the festival! So rather than keep delaying, I've finally decided to post it in chunks, to make it a more manageable task. This first chunk starts with a set by Chicago.

1969 was the first big year of large rock festivals, and it was arguably the best year, before problems with hard drugs and commercialism crept in. One 1969 festival overshadows all others: Woodstock. Certainly, that had the biggest cultural impact. But in terms of the actual music, there were some other festivals that were almost as good. The problem is, most of these other festivals weren't recorded, or if they were the recordings either are poor audience bootlegs or they're sitting in some record company vault. The Texas International Pop Festival is the one big exception to this. For some reason, soundboard bootlegs exist for much of the festival (though certainly not all of it), and high quality audience bootlegs can fill in some of the important missing bits. Between the sheer number of quality acts in the festival, and the quality of the recordings, this is a "must have" for anyone interested in the music from the era, in my opinion.

Since this is the first album I'm posting from the festival, let me give some background to the festival as a whole. There were over 40 rock festivals in 1969, most of them in the summer, but there were only a handful of really big ones. The first really big one took place in Atlanta in July, the Atlanta International Pop Festival. A 25 year old Texan named Angus G. Wayne III attended. He was the son Angus G. Wayne, the founder of the Six Flags Over Texas amusement park, so he had some money, and he wanted to get into the music promotion business. He loved the Atlanta festival and decided Texas needed one. So he immediately joined with Alex Cooley, the main promoter of the Atlanta festival, to quickly put one together before the summer ended. 

Wayne and Cooley didn't have much time, and they didn't have much money. They only had $120,000 to pay for the music acts. But that much money went a long way back then, apparently, because they were able to put together a stellar line-up of 26 different acts for a three-day festival, while spending no more than $10,000 on any one act. For the location, they chose a racetrack in Huntsville, a town of only 8,000 people on the outskirts of the Dallas-Ft. Worth area.

As chance would have it, another big festival took place two weeks before the Lewisville one: Woodstock! At the time the Lewisville festival was planned, the planners had no idea what a big deal Woodstock would be. It definitely increased interest in their festival too. Many people who missed out on Woodstock came from all over the U.S. and beyond to at least attend this similar festival.

But at the same time, Woodstock increased negative publicity on what they were trying to do. Keep in mind that Texas was a very politically and cultural conservative state back then, even more than it is now. That went doubly so for rural towns like Lewisville. The promoters got all the necessary permits before the Woodstock festival. Once the conservative leadership of Lewisville heard the news coming out of Woodstock, they tried to stop it, but there were too late. However, there was a concerted push to at least bad-mouth the festival, especially in the media. For instance, the Dallas Morning News published an editorial before the festival, titled "Nausea at Lewisville." 

Here's just a short except from that editorial, which reads today almost like an over-the-top parody of intolerant conservatism: 

"Young people assembling to hear music is one thing. Young people assembling in unspeakable costumes, half-naked, bare-footed, defying propriety, and scorning morality is another. ... Who and where are their parents? Where do these young people get the money to loaf around the country in their smelly regalia? ... The great majority of youngsters in this area are at home where they ought to be, mowing yards, working part-time jobs, and preparing for useful lives. In the meantime, the lewd and loose in Lewisville will swing and sway. They are to be pitied."

Due to that sort of backlash, many people were scared off from attending, especially due to parents who wouldn't let them go. The promoters were hoping for 200,000 or more to attend, but the real attendance was more like 120,000. Tickets were $6 per day, which was cheap even for the era. The promoters ultimately lost money, mostly due to increased insurance and security costs due to fears generated by the conservative backlash. 

But still, it was widely seen as a successful festival. The weather was sunny all three days, which meant no mud, and the crowd was cheery and peaceful. Only one person died (due to heat exhaustion, not drug use). The police were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and generally stayed outside the venue. That meant drug use inside the venue was rampant, but mostly just pot and psychedelics, because hard core drugs like heroin hadn't become a big problem with hippies yet.

The main "problem" was that some men and women went skinny dipping in an adjacent lake each day of the festival. This drew lots of curious outsiders, who rushed to the lake to see naked people. The police actually spent most of their time and energy trying to keep reactionary onlookers away from the nude bathers, who probably only numbered a couple dozen at most.

So that's the basic gist about the festival. If you want to know more, here's the Wikipedia page:

Texas International Pop Festival - Wikipedia 

But I found a fan site about the festival that's more interesting: 

https://www.austinnewsstory.com/TIPF/pop.htm

That had links to a longer essay about the festival. The links are dead, but I found an archived version. Most of the information I'll be writing about the festival comes from this multiple-page account, which starts here: 

https://web.archive.org/web/20160831184630/http://www.watermelon-kid.com/history/dallas/features/sonbeth/SixtiesDallas-sonbeth2.htm

Now, let's get to this album, and the surviving recording of it. Chicago released their first album, called "Chicago Transit Authority," in 1969. (The band was also called "Chicago Transit Authority" at the time, but I'm choosing to ignore that because they quickly changed their name when the real Chicago Transit Authority, a government entity, threatened to sue them.) At first, the band was unknown, but they began to slowly grow in popularity due to lots of touring, especially at festivals like this one. In fact, their first album wouldn't peak in the album charts until 1971, two years after it was released! So it's a safe bet that few people in the audience knew of the band beforehand, but they were well received.

The recording for this album is rather unusual for the festival because it comes from three different sources. Some acts played twice, or even occasionally three times, over the three days of the festival. Chicago was one of these acts, playing sets on both the first day, August 30, and the second day, August 31. The first eight tracks here are from a soundboard of the August 30th set. Tracks nine and ten are from a soundboard of the August 31st set. The last three tracks are from an audience bootleg, also from August 31st. (There were a few more songs from the audience boot that I didn't include since there are soundboard versions from August 30th.) 

Those last three tracks don't sound as good as the others, but they still sound fairly good. The audience boot was a pretty good one for the era. But also, I used some tricks to make them sound better. I used the MVSEP program to reduce the crowd noise during the songs. I also used the UVR5 program to boost the lead vocals relative to the instruments.

Note that I'm not entirely sure of the order of music acts at the festival, but I have a rough idea, thanks to that longer essay linked to above, and other sources. Chicago didn't open the festival; Grand Funk Railroad did. However, their set from this day isn't available (though a later one is). But Chicago was one of the first, I think. If anyone knows the exact order of the musical acts, please let me know (especially before I post the rest of the festival). It probably was late in the day by the time the band got on stage though, since the first act, Grand Funk Railroad, didn't start until about four in the afternoon.

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 talk (Chicago)
02 Introduction (Chicago)
03 Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is (Chicago)
04 South California Purples (Chicago)
05 talk (Chicago)
06 Beginnings (Chicago)
07 talk (Chicago)
08 25 or 6 to 4 [Edit] (Chicago)
09 talk (Chicago)
10 I'm a Man (Chicago)
11 talk (Chicago)
12 Questions 67 and 68 (Chicago)
13 Poem 58 (Chicago) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zyQpygBQ

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/17ZYS81wzAIujz2/file

I had a hard time finding a good photo of Chicago. It's not easy finding good photos of them because they have so many band members, scattered all over the stage. So instead of using a really crappy photo of just one or two band members, I chose a shot of the audience. I think it's a good introduction to showing what the festival looked like as a whole. I used the Krea AI program to improve the details.

As for the text, the top part is taken directly from a concert poster for the festival. I then tried to match that style with the text at the bottom. 

Isle of Wight Festival, Afton Down, Isle of Wight, Britain, 8-27-1970 to 8-30-1970 - 8-28-1970: Part 3: Chicago

The next big act to play the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival was Chicago. As you can see from the cover photo for this album, night had fallen by the time they took the stage. By that time, the crowd had reached its maximum size of about 600,000 to 700,000 people.

Chicago released their second album, "Chicago" (retroactively called "Chicago II") in early 1970. It was a big success, spawning three Top Ten hits in the US, "Make Me Smile," Colour My World," and "25 or 6 to 4." So the band was a very popular concert draw at this time.

This is the entire set. It was released in 2018 as the album "Chicago: Live at the Isle of Wight Festival." The sound is excellent, so I didn't have to make any edits or remixes this time.

Tracks 42 to 47 make up a song cycle called "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon." I could have posted that as one giant track, but I broke it up into each named section. 

Walter Parazaider, Chicago's saxophone player, later recalled the festival: “They had us in a holding area, with cottages and everything, which was just spectacular. The weather was great. Isle of Wight was our first experience of [playing festivals]. And you talk about people being really young – eyes as big as silver dollars, and taking everything in. The whole spectacle of it was amazing. It was massive. When you get that amount of people, just a whisper from a crowd is a roar. If you don’t keep within yourself, you could just as easily throw your horn in the crowd and run around like a lunatic, just freaking out. ... The crowd was very receptive. That first album had 'I'm a Man' on it – a Spencer Davis Group tune – and it had gone over quite well in England. They knew the material, and we were quite well received. It was one of the highlights of our career. It was a knockout."

Note that, like the previous album in this series, the first track here is not 01. Instead, the numbering continues where the previous set (Tony Joe White) left off. I'm going to stop mentioning this, but assume this pattern continues for the rest of the albums. I reset back to 01 each new day of the festival. This makes it easier if you want each day of the festival to be one non-stop listen.

This album is an hour and 29 minutes long.

Oh, and just for fun, here's a photo showing just how large the crowd of 600,000 or more actually looked like.

31 Introduction (Chicago)
32 South California Purples (Chicago)
33 Beginnings (Chicago)
34 talk (Chicago)
35 In the Country (Chicago)
36 Intro [Instrumental] (Chicago)
37 Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is (Chicago)
38 talk (Chicago)
39 Mother (Chicago)
40 It Better End Soon (Chicago)
41 talk (Chicago)
42 Make Me Smile (Chicago)
43 So Much to Say, So Much to Give (Chicago)
44 Anxiety's Moment - West Virginia Fantasies [Instrumental] (Chicago)
45 Colour My World (Chicago)
46 To Be Free [Instrumental] (Chicago)
47 Now More than Ever (Chicago)
48 25 or 6 to 4 (Chicago)
49 talk (Chicago)
50 I'm a Man (Chicago)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17175740/VA-IsleofWghtFestivlAftnDwnIsleofWghtBrtain__8-28-1970_Pt3Chicgo.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Qu3Lanvw

The cover photo comes from this exact concert. 

UPDATE: On September 28, 2024, I updated the cover image by upgrading it with the Krea AI program.

Chicago - Freedom Hall, Louisville, KY, 6-12-1974

This is the first time I've posted an album by the jazz-rock band Chicago. It's a concert bootleg, but if you want just one live recording of the band in their prime, this might be the best one out there. 

This is a fairly popular bootleg, because it was broadcast on the "King Biscuit Flower Hour" back in the day. However, I found several different versions of this bootleg, and none of them were complete. For instance, most of them miss the songs "Aire" and "Got to Get You into My Life" (a cover of the Beatles classic). I found the most complete version out there, but even this one was missing the second half of the song "Now More than Ever." I found a complete version of that from a different version, so this should have everything.

Different versions also have different sound quality, including some with fake audience applause added. This one has the best sound quality. It was professionally recorded for the radio, so it sounds as good as any live album at the time. In fact, the closest official live album chronologically is one called "Live in '75." But that has all kinds of performance and mixing problems. This is much better.

The timing of this album is key. In my opinion, Chicago's best years were 1969 to 1974. According to the crowd sourced ratings at rateyourmusic.com, six of the seven albums the band did in those years have a rating of 3.5 or higher. But no studio album the band has done in the many years since has ever come close to a 3.5. Also, in 1974, lead guitarist and occasional lead vocalist Terry Kath was still alive, and his playing is all over this recording. He would die in 1978.

This album is an hour and 35 minutes long.

01 talk (Chicago)
02 Introduction (Chicago)
03 Call on Me (Chicago)
04 Saturday in the Park (Chicago)
05 Something in This City Changes People (Chicago)
06 talk (Chicago)
07 Aire [Instrumental] (Chicago)
08 talk (Chicago)
09 Beginnings (Chicago)
10 Make Me Smile (Chicago)
11 So Much to Say, So Much to Give (Chicago)
12 Anxiety's Moment - West Virginia Fantasies [Instrumental] (Chicago)
13 Colour My World (Chicago)
14 To Be Free [Instrumental] (Chicago)
15 Now More than Ever (Chicago)
16 talk (Chicago)
17 Dialogue [Part I & II] (Chicago)
18 talk (Chicago)
19 Italian from New York [Instrumental] (Chicago)
20 Hanky Panky [Instrumental] (Chicago)
21 Life Saver (Chicago)
22 Just You 'n' Me (Chicago)
23 [I've Been] Searchin' So Long (Chicago)
24 25 or 6 to 4 (Chicago)
25 talk (Chicago)
26 Got to Get You Into My Life (Chicago)
27 talk (Chicago)
28 Feelin' Stronger Everyday (Chicago)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cdDp4Lg3

alternate link:

https://www.imagenetz.de/iFD7R

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/sVsgeyX16QALxyx/file

The cover photo was taken at Caribou Ranch, a recording studio up in the Rocky Mountains, near the town of Nederland, Colorado. Chicago recorded five albums there in the 1970s. This photo comes from a performance for a TV special called "Meanwhile Back at the Ranch" filmed around July 1974. The guy on the left of the stage with his back turned to the camera is actually a member of the film crew.