could to pay the rent. we just happened to play the whiskey go go, and jimmy had a camera and took some pictures of the chicago transit at the cta on t marquee at the whiskey. and when i go by there, i think of jimmy and i standing there. in the middle of sunset boulevard. we were opening for bb king or something like that. albert king. walter turned around to walk out, he probably he might have told you this story. i got a tap on my shoulder, and i turned around, i was putting one of my saxophones away. it was jimi hendrix. he called me by name, and he said, well, the horns are like one set of lungs. your guitar player is better than me. the horn section, it sounds like one set of lungs, and a guitar player that s better than me. he said that terry plays better than him. [ laughter ] first you have to realize, we were already listening intensely
the club owners wanted us to play stuff that people could dance to and then drink. they would make money and, you know, hopefully fill the club. we started playing one song called clouds and we got fired because we did an original song. he wanted to hear top 40. it was exciting. really, we d gotten the chance to hear what the band sounded like. i love you so we wore the suits and did the steps. ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the club. we re going to warm it up. it was an entirely different attitude toward playing music. then eventually, we began to arrange those songs for the inspiration of chicago. that s when we got into some dispute. we d get a call on a saturday night at 9:00 saying, this band, chicago transit authority, won t play the top 40 stuff. the kids hate it. we re getting rid of them at the next break. can you guys come down and
these guys really know what they re doing. while all the while we were in contact with jim guercio. i first became involved in chicago in college. saw there was no way for this to be successful without total commitment. he had the idea of building a management company, and he called it his creative community. i think his business tactics definitely had a hand in our creation and our success. he envisioned everything sort of being under one roof and when the time was right, we brought them to los angeles. the stars were aligned. we were supposed to do this. we were just meant to be. we all lived in a little house under the hollywood freeway. our bedrooms were various rooms,
community i always envisioned a recording studio as a place of destination where you could go and set your stuff up, get sounds, start recording and do it whenever you wanted. at that time columbia was forced to use their studios, and they were all union. i wanted to be free creatively from any technical constraints. tim visioned having a place somewhere where he could not be bothered by the outside world. it was a great concept actually. i think that was the devil s playground myself. our original producer built a ranch with the money that we made him. we got new success with chicago. i built the studio. it s the process i wanted, it s how i wanted people to conform
here are three members from chicago. it s terry and there s peter and there s danny. welcome to the uk. can i start off with you, terry? where did you get the song from? well, you ought to start with him since he wrote this song. well, i wanted you to say that so i could get to you. peter. well, actually you should no, i did write the song. just from experience. somebody wanted out of your life? many times. i don t know. i just wrote it. i have no idea. so when peter presented the ballad it was like of course, you know, we re one of the things that chicago was about was let s record and write whatever we want, including songs that maybe not everybody in the band loves but hey, if you write a song we re going to do it. we re going to do it the best we possibly can do it because that s who we are. and because we know that that s not who we are and we know that as nice a song as it is it s just not you know, nobody s going to like it.