Chicago - Beginnings & Questions 45s

Don't have a computer generated edit--my copy was custom-made for me by a company that charged me almost an arm and a leg to have it (never dealing with them again). From what I can tell, it does seem to match the edits as described above.

My pleasure, Ed. Although I will say this--I did have some troubles with the people who made it on a subsequent transaction, and they're not exactly moderately priced (and this was something like 10 or 11 years ago when I had this edit made). So I'm not exactly willing to give them a glowing recommendation (I won't even publicize them here--of course, with the bevy of source material available from you folks, it's not like any of us really need to utilize their services).

I am glad you enjoyed it though, Ed. If anyone really needs further details, you know where to reach me.

Edited by sriv94

Good info! Thanks Eric.

"Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?". First single release on the old style label has the jazz vamp intro on it and the talking in the break. The re-released single had the jazz vamp edited out and no talking in the break. Version 1 was a fair seller, version 2 was a big hit.

jebsib wrote: Curious about Chicago's "Beginnings" - not sure if anyone was listening to the radio back in 1971, but it seems like a very odd song to get to #1 at Adult Contemporary stations at that time.

How is this "very odd"? Blood, Sweat & Tears' "Spinning
Wheel", which is also heavy on the brass, had already been
a BB AC chart-topper two years earlier, and its follow-up,
"And When I Die", was close behind at #4.

It wasn't as though Chicago hadn't already enjoyed
breakthrough AC success, since "Does Anybody Really Know
What Time It Is" had been a top 5 AC hit a half-year
earlier. I would consider the 45 version of "Beginnings"
to be a medium tempo pop record, not a "hard brass rock
jam." It's very much in the same vein as "DARKWTII".

Middle-of-the-road radio was gradually changing with the
times, and the sound of acts featuring prominent brass
sections, including BS&T and Chicago, would not have been
entirely foreign to many older MOR listeners who'd come of
age during the Big Band era. MOR playlists were by no
means limited to just super-soft hits like "You've
Got A Friend", "For All We Know" or "If".

I'm exaggerating here, of course, but Olivia's "If Not For
You" is like a savage rocker, compared to, say, her later
"I Honestly Love You". And it even has a fuzz guitar
during the break (which is mixed a little more upfront on
the mono single.)

jebsib wrote: its 45 flip-side, "Colour My World", never a single, was played to death in the 70s and became the ipso-facto prom theme for middle America that decade.

Not sure how "Colour My World" can and cannot
simultaneously be "a single." In any event, it didn't earn
enough spins to chart MOR.

Although Chicago III had sold well, neither of its
two singles, "Free" and "Lowdown" kept the group's top-40
momentum on the rise, and with the prospects of a 4-LP live
album later on in the year, Columbia did what it had to, by
mining the first two albums for potential singles success.
"Colour My World" was a part of that strategy, and while it
may not have shown up on the Hot 100 as anything more than
a "flip", having worked in college radio at the time
"Beginnings"/"Colour My World" was a current single, I can
tell you that the latter title was one of our most heavily
requested song for months on end. Its time had come,
belated though it may have been.

One more thought on how MOR radio was adapting to the
reality that the Dean Martins and John Garys of the world
were no longer selling in sufficient numbers at the
beginning of the new decade: here in Minneapolis/St. Paul,
the by-far dominant station at the time was WCCO-AM. It
was a legendary full service, 50,000-watt powerhouse. WCCO
began to realize that they needed some younger blood on the
staff and hired Denny Long, who'd been with a local oldies
station, to be their new music director in early 1971 (he's
still there, 50 years later.)

Later that same year, one of the WCCO personalities got
onto the subject of the Rolling Stones, realizing that the
majority of his listeners had probably never actually heard
a record by the group. So he put on a cut from the Stones'
latest album, Sticky Fingers. Which song did he
pick as being representative of the band?

"Bitch".

Local boy Bob Dylan, whose hard rock jam, "Subterranean
Homesick Blues", had gone to number 6 on Billboard's
Middle-Road chart in 1965, would have been proud.