Songoftheday 9/13/17 - Did the best I could to make you mine, if you ever felt anything for me well you never gave a sign...
from the album Twenty 1 (1991)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #39 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 2
Today's song of the day comes from the band Chicago, who had transformed from a jazz-rock outfit in the late 1960's into a soft-pop hitmaking machine in the 1980's. Their Chicago 19 album had scored them four top ten pop hits with "I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love", "Look Away", "You're Not Alone", and "What Kind Of Man Would I Be". The latter song also appeared on their twentieth release, the Greatest Hits 1982-1989 collection, and peaked in the winter of 1990. Later that summer, a contribution to the racing movie Days Of Thunder, the Bon Jovi-ish "Hearts In Trouble", was a minor hit at #75. In 1991, after drummer Danny Seraphine departed the band, Chicago released Twenty 1, their third release after lead singer/bassist Peter Cetera left for a solo career. The first single from the record was "Chasin' The Wind", was back to another heartbreak love ballad sung by Bill Champlin, and written by song doctor Diane Warren. Produced by Ron Nevison (Heart), it would be their last hurrah on the pop charts...
"Chasin' The Wind" became Chicago's most recent top-40 pop hit in March of 1991. The song also climbed to #13 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart. It also made it to #50 in Canada. Another track from the album, "You Come To My Senses", missed the pop Hot 100, but managed to go to #11 on the Adult Contemporary list.
After a more rock-oriented album, Stone Of Sisyphus, was stalled by their record company, Chicago signed with Giant, releasing a critically lauded jazz album Night And Day in 1995. In 1997 and 1998, they released two greatest hits collections, with each producing two hits on the Adult Contemporary chart, including the #1 "Here In My Heart". They hooked up with Jay Demarcus from the country crossover band Rascal Flatts, who produced their Chicago XXX set, which spun off two more AC hits with "Feel" (#19) and "Love Will Come Back" (#21). Most recently, a holiday recording of "My Favorite Things" took them to #9 on that same chart in 2011. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015, and they continue to tour very successfully under the same moniker, albeit with different members (right now, only the original horn section of Robert Lamm, James Pankow, and Lee Loughnane remain from the first incarnation of the group).
Up tomorrow: Swedish duo goes on a road trip.
Comments