Chicago, iconic 'rockers with horns' set to play Musikfest, found success based on basics, sax player says

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — When super band Chicago headlines Musikfest's main Steel Stage on Tuesday, it will be its fourth headline show in the festival's 42 years.

Of course, Chicago has been touring for 58 years, making it one of the longest-running and most successful rock bands of all time.

"There’s nothing like live music," Chicago saxophonist, composer and arranger Ray Hermann said in a phone call last week.

"You get immediate feedback from the audience. They let you know exactly how you're doing. Is it a good connection, bad connection? Are they feeling anything, is it boring?

"And every show, it’s like the venue stage sound monitors are all different, so we put that all together and connect with the audience, which is what we try to do every night.

"The shows have been sold out. It's been amazing, been great."

Chicago has sold more than 120 million copies of its 46 albums sold worldwide, making it among the Top 30 bestselling music acts of all time and the first American rock band to chart Top 40 albums in six consecutive decades.

And the lifetime achievements just keep piling up for the legendary "rock 'n' roll band with horns."

But Hermann said that for him, being part of such a great musical group started with simply learning to play.

'I had to sit there and practice'

Two Grammy Awards, a 2020 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, 2016 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 2017 Songwriter's Hall of Fame, 47 gold and platinum awards, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and keys and proclamations to and from numerous U.S. cities are among the band's honors.

This year, its April 8, 1969, debut album, "Chicago Transit Authority" was inducted into the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.

The registry archives audio treasures "worthy of preservation for all time based on their cultural, historical or aesthetic importance in the nation's recorded sound heritage," according to its website.

The band, which includes original three members still touring and recording — Robert Lamm, Robert Pankow and Lee Loughnane — has publicly expressed both surprise and honor at the feat.

Listening to even just Hermann talk candidly about how music was just a normal part of his upbringing, it seems unequivocally a given that the accolades would come to a band filled with that caliber of musicianship.

“My mom played the violin, my older sister played piano, so at age 6, it was natural that I’d play piano too," Hermann said. "And then clarinet in the third grade, and so, I did that.

"And I practiced a half-hour each day on each, and then I could go out and play. Thank God for my mom being there, and saying, 'You didn’t practice, no baseball until you do,' and I had to sit there and practice."

Then there was Maynard

Hermann said both his parents were German immigrants, "so there was always a lot of German folk music, also Mozart, Beethoven and so that kind of thing."

Then, he said, jazz trumpet great Maynard Ferguson came to his high school.

"I saw this and saw their sax players, and I thought, 'Can I maybe play the sax?' So there I was, a rising freshman, and my folks got me a sax."

Hermann said he auditioned for the high school jazz band and got in, playing baritone sax "in this big high school outside of Chicago," where he grew up.

"There was a lot of music going on there, and my high school band director, Norm Lang, was just a great guy," Hermann said.

"Loved music and loved all kinds of music, was super positive. And then I just decided that was it. I just loved jazz, loved the sax, got deeper into that, and that was pretty much it.

"I wanted to quit every day, totally. But that's when it clicked for me. In high school."

After school, Hermann moved to Los Angeles and got into the studio scene, recording and doing TV shows.

"No live audiences," he said. "I was trying to make a living, doing movie soundtracks and all that stuff.

"So playing live for me is extremely special," he said of touring.

"Me being from Chicago, I grew up with these guys. I always loved their music. To be part of it, and the day-in, day-out too, that's the really fun part, being with the guys, and it’s really been great."

Joining Chicago

Hermann said his sister was a few years older and had the "Chicago Transit Authority" debut album.

"I just remember opening up that record and seeing Robert Lamm in there looking at some sheet music, just real cool," he said.

As a kid, Hermann said, wanted to be Chicago founding guitarist and singer Terry Kath, "playing rocking guitar solos."

Kath, who had guitar skills often compared to legend Jimi Hendrix. Kath accidentally shot himself at age 31 while cleaning one of his guns.

"But playing the music, for first time, when Walt [founding Chicago member Walter Parazaider] called me and said, 'Here’s the set list,'" Hermann said.  

"Thank God he gave me four or five weeks to memorize it. I had played 'Make Me Smile' in high school. I played the clarinet part, that was fun, but where I really got into the music was pretty much right before I started playing with these guys.”

Touring with French pop icon Johnny Hallyday at the time, Hermann was able to fill in for Parazaider, who was having health issues, when needed, starting in 2005.

"Eventually it became too much for him to tour," and Hermann stepped in full-time.

Hermann became an official member of Chicago in 2016.

On songwriting

Hermann said he's “never been good at lyrics, so I have written hundreds of instrumentals all the way since high school but never felt that good about my lyrics."

But he said Chicago was doing a Christmas record a few years back with Rhino Records and the record company said it wanted to "put a couple of new songs in as well."

"So everyone was writing and arranging more Christmas songs, and before you know it, we had 15-20 new Christmas songs," Hermann said.

"So Rhino decided at that point to just do another Christmas record with all new arrangements.

"I only did one song and that was, 'Here We Come a Caroling.' I did the arrangement for the band, and that was a lot of fun. So many great musicians.

It "was great to have the guys play my arrangement. I was honored it got picked to be on the record." 

Accomplishments outside Chicago

Hermann has had musical accomplishments apart from Chicago.

For instance, he played a sax solo on the Brian Setzer Orchestra's 1998 recorded rendition of Louis Prima's "Jump, Jive an' Wail."

The album went Top 10 on the Billboard chart and the song won on the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.

Hermann said he remembers it well.

“Every musical situation is different for sure," he said. "For that solo, we were recording a record for Interscope. It was done, and the president of Interscope came in and said, 'Yeah it’s good but you know, we need something else. We need a hit.'

"And so they decided — there was a Gap commercial that was using the original. They said, 'Let’s re-record it.'

"The original had a couple horns, and Brian’s band was a big band at the time, so we recorded it, and Brian did the guitar solo, and [the Interscope president] goes, 'Great, but where’s the sax solo?'

"Everybody had left already, just a few of us guys left in the studio, and the engineer, and they spliced together, predigital, literally the tape and put in a little section with the rhythm section, and I played a solo over it.

"And so I wish I could say it was like a deep artistic kind of, you know, thing, but it wasn’t. They needed a sax solo, we said let’s put it in. It was a combo of the Sam Butera original sax solo, so I put my own thing in.

"The song is kind of playful. I was hired to do a job, and that’s what I did.”

Chicago, 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 5, Steel Stage at Musikfest, 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem. Tickets (including all fees): $67.50-$89.50 reserved seating (other sections sold out), $53.25 general admission standing.