Chicago’s ‘Live at 55’ Give Fans the Chance to Celebrate 55 Years of Hits

Chicago threw a 55th anniversary party a year ago in Atlantic City, with a little help from some friends. And the new Live at 55 gives fans a chance to be part of the celebration.

Billed to Chicago & Friends, Live at 55 (out Friday, Nov. 22 via Mercury Studios) captures the epic 31-song performance — filmed over two nights before 10,000 fans at Ocean Casino Resort — on a variety of video and audio formats. At both shows the current incarnation of the band was joined by guest vocalists (Chris Daughtry, Robin Thicke, Judith Hill, VoicePlay) and guitarists (Steve Vai, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram) as well as pedal steel virtuoso Robert Randolph. The brassy group’s five and a half decades of hits are well-represented, and there’s no question the additional personnel injected a little more octane into the shows.

“It was interesting because we usually don’t have guest artists, much less seven of them,” trumpeter Lee Loughnane, one of three founding members (along with keyboardist Robert Lamm and trombonist James Pankow) still active in Chicago, tells Billboard. “The variety and the different flavors of their styles was quite different than what we’ve done before; it was very interesting to see and hear how they blended their expertise with what we’ve done for decades, so it was pretty cool that it all came together.