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Chicago at Carnegie Hall (1971)

Where the lyrics of Chicago at Carnegie Hall take you, and where it was really made.

The album is also known as Chicago IV because its four-LP box set was counted as the band's fourth album.

Key places

Recorded live at Carnegie Hall (1971)

Recording site Carnegie Hall — Chicago played Carnegie Hall for a week in April 1971 and recorded all of their shows there. The recordings became this four-LP live set. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Chicago at Carnegie Hall, also known as Chicago IV: first live album by the American band Chicago
• Fourth album overall; the nickname comes from the four-LP box set counted as the fourth release
• Initially released 25 October 1971 by Columbia Records as a four-LP vinyl box set
• Also available for a time as two separate two-record sets
• Peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200
• RIAA gold two weeks after release, platinum in 1986
• Only one of the group's first ten releases without a quadraphonic version in any format

Background

• Recorded during a week of shows at Carnegie Hall in April 1971, while touring for Chicago III
• Every show of that week was recorded
• Columbia was skeptical of the risk of the extended set; royalties were reduced to counter that fear
• Critics found the album too long and indulgent, including the tune-ups
• Band members remained divided over the album through the years
• Billboard 1972 Trendsetter Award for setting Carnegie Hall records and the four-LP live recording
• According to William James Ruhlmann, it was perhaps the best-selling box set by a rock act until Springsteen's 1986 five-LP Live/1975-85; it is still the best-selling four-LP set

Recording

• Recorded at Carnegie Hall, New York, by Location Recorders
• Mixed at Columbia Recording Studios, New York
• Produced by James William Guercio
• Engineers include Don Puluse, Bud Graham, Hank Altman, Aaron Baron and Larry Dahlstrom

Cover

• Original LP release: two giant posters of the band, a poster of Carnegie Hall's exterior, a voting information insert, and a 20-page softcover booklet
• The booklet's back bore a full touring schedule from the first tour through the 1971 US tour
• The band's official site labels the cover design "white tile"

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · www.discogs.com

Tracklist

Disc 1

Disc 2

Disc 3

Disc 4

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Chicago is an American rock band formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1967.
• The band described itself as a "rock and roll band with horns" and blended classical music, jazz, R&B, and pop.
• The group first called itself the Big Thing, became Chicago Transit Authority in 1968, and shortened its name to Chicago in 1969.

Members

• The original line-up was Peter Cetera (bass), Terry Kath (guitar), Robert Lamm (keyboards), Lee Loughnane (trumpet), James Pankow (trombone), Walter Parazaider (woodwinds), and Danny Seraphine (drums).
• Lamm, Loughnane, and Pankow have remained constant members since 2009.
• Terry Kath died in 1978 after an accidental gunshot wound.

Career

• The band's debut double album, Chicago Transit Authority (1969), was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2014.
• In 1971 Chicago became the first rock act to sell out a week at Carnegie Hall.
• "If You Leave Me Now" (1976) became the group's first number-one single and won its only Grammy.
• Billboard placed the band among the most successful chart acts in its history, and it has sold more than 100 million records.
• The original line-up was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016.
• Chicago received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award on October 16, 2020.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Lester Bangs, writing for Creem in February 1972, considered the musicianship "technically competent" but found too many moments where the parts could be heard better than the whole
• Bangs considered the arrangements sodden carbon copies of the studio versions with directionless solos, and called it the band's worst album

Reappraisal

• Lindsay Planer of AllMusic praised the "muscular" performances of several songs in a retrospective review
• Planer found the reeds and brass thin-sounding and Carnegie Hall acoustically poor for amplified rock
• Band members stayed divided: Robert Lamm and Walter Parazaider defended the album, while James Pankow and Peter Cetera were not happy with it

Records

• Peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200; sold very well but failed to chart in the UK
• RIAA gold two weeks after release; platinum in 1986
• Billboard 1972 Trendsetter Award for setting Carnegie Hall records
• Still the best-selling four-LP set

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Walter Parazaider said the band were the first rock 'n' roll group to sell out a week at Carnegie Hall, which was worth the effort of recording it.
• James Pankow said the Carnegie Hall acoustics were never meant for amplified music, and that the brass sounded like kazoos after being miked.
• Lee Loughnane said he thinks the album is good, but that there were many things he did not like and he did not think it should have been released.
• A quadraphonic mix was proposed but never made, possibly because the band objected to the album being released at all.
• In 2005 Rhino Records remastered and re-issued the album on three CDs with improved sound, a bonus disc of alternate takes, and recreated posters and packaging.
• On 5 April 2021, 50 years to the day after the first Carnegie Hall show, Rhino announced a 16-CD box set covering all six April 1971 shows plus two matinees.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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