"Hi, I’m Jimi Hendrix. I’ve been watching you guys...
December 24, 2016 6:27 PM   Subscribe

and I think your guitarist is better than me." The guitarist Hendrix was referring to was Terry Kath. Here is an hour & thirty five minutes of Chicago, live from 7/21/1970 at Tanglewood, Lenox, MA.

Who is Terry Kath? Simply, he was an original member of the pioneering rock group Chicago who played guitar, sang and wrote songs.

Kath, a gun enthusiast, accidentally shot and killed himself on January 23, 1978. (Chicago's Billboard Bio). Reportedly, his last words were "Don't worry, it's not loaded."

obl. wiki
posted by Devils Rancher (45 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
note: the track listing on the video description is incorrect in that it omits the first song, actually titled "Introduction," (which was also the opening track on their first album), so the times listed for the rest of the songs are off by about 7 minutes.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:30 PM on December 24, 2016


"Don't worry, it's not loaded"... the famous last words of many gun enthusiasts and congressional and parliamentary democracies.
posted by hippybear at 6:52 PM on December 24, 2016 [10 favorites]


CNN has a new documentary about Chicago premiering on Jan. 2 I believe.
posted by Clustercuss at 7:33 PM on December 24, 2016 [2 favorites]


Are guitarists just more obsessed with who is "better" than other instrumentalists? I know saxophone players back in the 30's and 40's had "cutting contests" where they strove to outdo one another, but it seems like guitar (and bass, to a lesser degree) players are particularly concerned with technique.
posted by thelonius at 7:37 PM on December 24, 2016 [2 favorites]


Sure, I'm old, but this is the kind of thing I think about when I hear the phrase "Make America great again."
posted by Lyme Drop at 7:38 PM on December 24, 2016 [4 favorites]


Chicago is the best of the bands that are named after a place (which is not saying a lot).
posted by mikemacman at 7:45 PM on December 24, 2016 [3 favorites]


Chicago is the best of the bands that are named after a place (which is not saying a lot).

If I could only take one LP with me to Hell, I'd pick an Atlanta Rhythm Section album over any of Chicago's slabs.
posted by thelonius at 7:47 PM on December 24, 2016 [4 favorites]


If I could only take one LP with me to Hell, I'd pick an Atlanta Rhythm Section album over any of Chicago's slabs.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I meant bands whose names are solely place names. Chicago, Boston, Kansas, Asia, etc.
posted by mikemacman at 7:50 PM on December 24, 2016 [3 favorites]


They were Chicago Transit Authority at first. Their decline began as soon as they changed the name.
posted by darksasami at 8:05 PM on December 24, 2016 [6 favorites]


This is one of those bands who are actually worse live than on record. On the albums, that brass section seems to be dozens strong in preternatural lockstep... live? I've seen marching jazz bands on parade in NoLa who had it more together, and also four times as many guys. There's like a trombonist, a trumpet and a sax, that's it. That would sound sad and small playing Christmas carols for spare change at a subway stop.

In the studio, sure, that's a brass section. Live? Wow, it's dumb, and it also has the evil of drowning out Kath's sublime guitar and the harmony in the vocals.

On the other hand, "25 or 6 to 4" is about as perfect a studio track as any band has laid down, ever. Love. That. Brass.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:16 PM on December 24, 2016 [5 favorites]


Oh, god, I just listened to Saturdays in the Park for the first time in twenty years. Just let it play through and listened. I'm kind of crying now. Now I'm listening to "Does anyone really know what time it is?" - fuck, it's sooo good, no, streaming service, stop with the Chicago! Ummm. Maybe more Chicago. I'll go back to vaporwave and outrun, but just for tonight, Chicago. I used to hate these songs as a teenager otherwise addicted to classic rock in rebellion to mainstream hair-metal. They're all legit good. What was I thinking? I loved the slow and complex CSN&Y harmonic stuff, too.

I still hate the Beach Boys, sorry.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:36 PM on December 24, 2016 [4 favorites]



I still hate the Beach Boys, sorry.


So do The Bobs.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:56 PM on December 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


Chicago is the best of the bands that are named after a place (which is not saying a lot).

I'd go with Portishead myself.
posted by Rumple at 9:03 PM on December 24, 2016 [8 favorites]


"I'd go with Portishead myself."

Yes! Buffett all the way!
posted by bz at 9:16 PM on December 24, 2016


Bands named after a place, you say? I always think Chilliwack.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 9:51 PM on December 24, 2016 [2 favorites]


"In the studio, sure, that's a brass section. Live? Wow, it's dumb"

Man, fight me, [trombonist] Pankow and I studied under the same jazz teacher. (Uh, 30 years apart.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:09 PM on December 24, 2016 [3 favorites]


Oh god, that reminds me that Chicago Transit Authority opened for Hendrix in Dallas in late 60s or early 70s. I always wondered why...seemed like an odd pairing.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 11:38 PM on December 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


Kath’s homage to Hendrix on the C.T.A. double album (which stayed on the charts for over three years!) was Free Form Guitar, which according to producer James William Guercio was “performed on a Fender Stratocaster guitar through a Showman amplifier equipped with a twin 15 bottom utilizing a Bogan P.A. amplifier as a pre-amp. No electronic gimmicks or effects were used...”
posted by LeLiLo at 11:38 PM on December 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


Kath? Gibbons? Gallagher? Interesting discussion.
posted by TedW at 1:27 AM on December 25, 2016 [1 favorite]


it seems like guitar (and bass, to a lesser degree) players are particularly concerned with technique.

#notallguitarists

But yeah, it's way way more common amongst guitar payers (and to a lesser extent, bassists) than people who play just about any other instrument (though drummers are often bad for it too). I think it's because nobody starts playing, say, accordion in order to "be cool and pick up chicks" but I have come across a depressing number of guitarists who not only did, but insist that's why everyone who plays guitar first started (even when confronted with people, who may be straight women or gay men, telling them that that has nothing to do with their motivations, now or ever - they must just be lying cause they don't want to admit being similarly vapid and shallow). An awful lot of bassists are just failed guitarists, or guitarists who wanted to be more in demand (bassists are thinner on the ground) so that attitude isn't uncommon there either.

(I'm a bassist first and foremost before any fellow four-stringers start tearing into me).
posted by Dysk at 3:15 AM on December 25, 2016 [3 favorites]


Don't worry. It's not loaded.

Baby, what a big surprise.
posted by carmicha at 3:20 AM on December 25, 2016 [4 favorites]


I'm not a big Steve Albini fan, but I have a friend who is, and when said friend told me that Cheap Trick and Chicago (in their Transit Authority years) were worthy of consideration (or reconsideration) because Albini said so, I couldn't tell whether Albini was being a snarky edgelord or earnest in his appreciation*. So friend put on "Free Form Guitar" from CTA, and... yes. That's a clear precursor to the metal/punk/noise that was all around us at the time in the 90s; if you like that, there's been a lot of water drawn from that well in the following years, mostly by kids not fully aware of their antecedents.

*(when in doubt, hedge your bet. Albini later produced one of Cheap Trick's albums too.)
posted by ardgedee at 5:41 AM on December 25, 2016 [3 favorites]


Chicago is the best of the bands that are named after a place (which is not saying a lot).

Japan, the Hampton Grease Band, and early Kansas are all superior.
posted by kenko at 7:03 AM on December 25, 2016 [2 favorites]


Hampton Grease Band

They were named after their leader, Col. Bruce Hampton, Ret., not a place.
posted by thelonius at 7:26 AM on December 25, 2016 [2 favorites]


> ...bands that are named after a place

Does Styx qualify for that list?
posted by ardgedee at 7:44 AM on December 25, 2016 [5 favorites]


Does Styx qualify for that list?

I think since they sound like hell, we can stretch the definition to include them.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:10 AM on December 25, 2016 [5 favorites]


The difference between bassists and guitarists is that the "who was better" contests for bassists always start with "Ok, other than Jaco..."
posted by tobascodagama at 8:13 AM on December 25, 2016 [3 favorites]


Also, I'm going to go out on another unpopular limb here & say that after a few days of close listening to a lot of Chicago that Peter Cetera (no matter what you think of his ballads & his solo career) is a FANTASTIC bassist. I'm not happy that Kath's rhythm parts got mixed out of the first two albums & buried under the horns on the left channel, but Cetera's bass was mixed loud & full, & his crafty lines carry so many of those songs.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:14 AM on December 25, 2016 [1 favorite]


"Ok, other than Jaco..."

Ain't that the damn truth?

I have my favorites, but I find them to be based (heh) less of technical ability & more on groove & foudation. After Jaco, name me a bass player that served the songs better than Family Man Barrett.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:18 AM on December 25, 2016 [1 favorite]


Jaco, by the way, played in the Chicago-esque Blood, Sweat, aand Tears for a few months. The BS&T drummer and leader, Bobby Colomby, was also the A&R guy who discovered Jaco and signed him to Epic and produced his first album. Around this time, Ron McCLure left the band, and Colomby asked Jaco to fill in for a while, which he did. That is where he met Mike Stern, who he worked with in the 80's.

I've never heard any recordings of those shows, and I do not know if any exist.
posted by thelonius at 8:35 AM on December 25, 2016 [3 favorites]


Kath? Gibbons? Gallagher? Interesting discussion.

This comment from that discussion probably sums it up best.

"My suspicion is that Jimi was just a nice guy who tended to compliment other players, even using useless superlatives from time to time. If he liked someone he probably said that they were the best, never expecting to be quoted 40+ years later."

Stevie was like this. He told me once that his brother Jimmy was really better than him & he owed him everything.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:45 AM on December 25, 2016 [3 favorites]


> After Jaco, name me a bass player that served the songs better than Family Man Barrett.

I won't pick up that "better than" challenge, but how about James Jamerson, Carol Kaye, Duck Dunn, Jerry Jemmott and Bootsy Collins as peers.
posted by ardgedee at 8:48 AM on December 25, 2016 [3 favorites]


On the other hand, "25 or 6 to 4" is about as perfect a studio track as any band has laid down, ever. Love. That. Brass.

I'm partial to the more bluesy "I'm a Man."
posted by Thorzdad at 8:49 AM on December 25, 2016 [1 favorite]


I won't pick up that "better than" challenge, but how about James Jamerson, Carol Kaye, Duck Dunn, Jerry Jemmott and Bootsy Collins as peers.

Absolutely. Paul McCartney, Chuck Rainey, the list goes on. My point being that you don't have to be able to play 64th notes like Victor Wooten or Stanley Clarke to land on my list of favorite players. The bass is a supporting, ensemble instrument. I prefer players that have gotten over themselves enough to realize this.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:03 AM on December 25, 2016 [3 favorites]


I've never heard any recordings of those shows, and I do not know if any exist.

There was an anthology released a few years back that a couple of tracks from that era landed on. Or maybe I'm mixing that up with Punk Jazz, which has some recordings of Jaco with Wayne Cochran & the CC Riders.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:57 AM on December 25, 2016


I'm fairly convinced that the first Chicago album (or the Chicago Transit Authority, or the CTA) album went down like this:
Burt Bacharach was involved in a sizable Sandoz-manuctured LSD heist in Los Angeles so he had to go someplace 'til the heat blew over. He decided on the city of Chicago and spent the better part of six months in a studio (where else would ol' Burt be?), dropping acid and writing songs. Those songs? Well, they were none other than that first Chicago album, the greatest Burt Bacharach album until Prefab Sprout's "Steve McQueen" album was written about 15 years later.
posted by NoMich at 10:00 AM on December 25, 2016


Oh god, that reminds me that Chicago Transit Authority opened for Hendrix in Dallas in late 60s or early 70s. I always wondered why...seemed like an odd pairing.

While I'm not (quite) old enough to have lived through this first-hand, I think this wasn't all that odd from the 60's through the late 70's, maybe early 80's, judging from various histories/band biographies I've read and old concert posters I've seen. I think people - maybe especially concert promoters, band managers, and booking agents, who tended to be at least a little older than the musicians and audiences - just lumped a whole bunch of music under "rock" and booked whoever was available and affordable. My impression is that it wasn't until punk and metal had sort of had a few years to sink in as separate sub-genres of "rock" that audiences themselves started differentiating enough between bands so that having [Rock Band A] open for [Rock Band B] wouldn't help or would even hurt ticket sales.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:58 AM on December 25, 2016 [3 favorites]


"My suspicion is that Jimi was just a nice guy who tended to compliment other players, even using useless superlatives from time to time. If he liked someone he probably said that they were the best, never expecting to be quoted 40+ years later."

From what I've read about Jimi, that is certainly the case. Jimi wasn't technically perfect and some feel he could be sloppy live. Kath was definitely a technician. But Jimi was light years ahead of everyone in terms of innovation, of stretching the boundaries of rock/soul/blues/psych into a seamless whole with mind-blowing recordings and performances. Kath was in a band that kept him down in the mix and he wasn't one of their main songwriters. Try thinking of a Chicago guitar riff and you run out after "25 or 6 to 4".
posted by Ber at 11:29 AM on December 25, 2016 [2 favorites]


There's tons of great Kath guitar music—solos, rhythm, fills and the like—on the deep tracks of Chicago albums. But to appreciate his genius, just check out this guy reproducing the solo from 25 or 6 to 4, and imagine the hours of practice it took to reproduce, note perfect, something Kath basically improvised.

I came to Chicago fandom as a horn player and emerged a Kath fan (and guitar player). Don't get me started on Donnie Dacus.

Danny Seraphine's drumming is also tremendously underrated.
posted by stargell at 11:58 AM on December 25, 2016 [3 favorites]


> I've never heard any recordings of [BS&T with Jaco Pastorius] shows, and I do not know if any exist.

This prompted me to do some digging and... yeah, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but more broadly speaking BS&T was not a hot item among concert bootleggers (back in the days when shows were circulated by pressing vinyl copies and dubbing 1/4" reels) so even in their prime there looks like an average of less than one concert bootleg per year between 1968-1976. Jaco would have been standing in when they'd become a solidly MOR act -- tantalizingly, there's a semi-official concert album from shows from mid-75, before he joined and a bootleg from mid-76, after he left, and that's as close as we get. If this sounds depressing, only one show from their Al Kooper era seems to have survived.

Bringing this back around to the FPP, imagine what a Terry Kath / Jaco Pastorius / Ginger Baker trio could have sounded like.
posted by ardgedee at 2:43 PM on December 25, 2016 [3 favorites]


> but more broadly speaking BS&T was not a hot item among concert bootleggers

But there *are* a whole bunch of Weather Report shows on Dime. With lineage similar to:
Source: Audience Recording
Lineage: Prehistoric Cassette Recorder > Master Cassette
So, mileage and tolerance of tape hiss, wow, and flutter will vary.
posted by mikelieman at 3:30 PM on December 25, 2016 [1 favorite]


there was a high quality release of live Weather Report last year, by the way
posted by thelonius at 3:59 PM on December 25, 2016 [3 favorites]


This is one of those bands who are actually worse live than on record.

That may have depended on the show.
I never went to a lot of concerts, but by chance I saw Chicago 3 times:
-1969 Atlantic City Pop Festival- they were OK, maybe good
-1970 Harrisburg Farm Show Arena- the were terrible
-1973 Madison Square Garden- totally awesome

I just figured it was the venue. What do you expect at the Farm Show? Even Iron Butterfly was not so good there.
posted by MtDewd at 4:49 PM on December 25, 2016 [2 favorites]


Kath was the only member of Chicago who couldn't read or write music, yet the band gladly left him the arranging duties, suitably recognizing, I guess, the difference between brilliance and genius.
posted by Chitownfats at 8:26 PM on December 25, 2016


Man, fight me, [trombonist] Pankow and I studied under the same jazz teacher.

Your teacher instructed one of the best rock-trombonists of all time, and the only one of his kind worth mentioning before Ska GOT BIG in the late '80s, early '90s. In the studio, Chicago's brass section were gods made flesh. In concert, they couldn't play tricks with tracks, and there were only the three of them, and you could jack an electric guitar straight into the sound-system, but you needed to mic the horns, and hope to hell the mix was right, and they were also trying to mic the vocals for complex multi-part harmony, and THAT failed, too...
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:43 PM on December 25, 2016


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