If Memory Swerves™, 'twas on this day in history (April 8, 2016) that the Chicago Transmit Authority® — later, simply, "Chicago" — was inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Old Flames™. Never in the history of popular recording has a more unlikely assemblage of train conductors, railway signalmen and trolley car drivers gathered together with such sustaining musical efficiency as these hippy-haired horn blowers and pigskin pounders. They redefined what a brass band could be and their multi-textured song offerings and gigantine album packagings would take to the Billboard® Charts with singular — if not double or triple-plattered — aplomb for years. That they would return to the world stage for the ceremonies in Cleveland was a much needed (handgun) shot in the arm to their namesake Second-Tier City™, a toddlin', windblown township that was seeing bad news arrive on its doorstep with every afternoon delivery of the Chicago Today® broadsheet. To wit: Their bi-annual overtures to host the Special Olympic® Games were dismissed with a snicker by the United Nations, their hair-hatted Mayor Rahm Blagoyavich, a once and future foul-mouthed U.S. Senator, remained under big house arrest, and their hopes that a space-age, lake-fronted museum would supplant the hideousness of Soldier’s Memorial Field were about to be dashed. Then there were the ongoing failings: Their professional sporting teams were an altogether embarrassment, the culinary skills of their restaurateurs had been savaged by the Michelin® Ma'am and the dismantling of their advert agencies proceeded unchecked, with creative directors taking to the pavement with their absconded portfolio cases and ponytails en masse. If someone were to somehow trumpet the return of The City of Big Shoulders, Stumochs and Hind Ends™, who better than the bloody blowhards in the bland? Original members Mangione, Peterik, DeYoung, etCetera had welcomed a new crop of trombonists and tubateers to the fold and the stage at the Bar-Kays® Center on the gig night was "jammed" to full capacity for a anticipated jam session alongside other lone-monikered state-sanctioned inductees Kansas, Boston and Baton Rouge. Today, the grizzled, soul-patched road warriors in Chicago journey on. 'Tis “only the beginning” for these journeymen noisemakers. 25 or 6…to more, gents!!
