Out of all the musicians that played in the band Chicago during their reign at the top during the ’70s, Danny Seraphine was the most underrated. Maybe among artists in the know he had some credibility, but how many people from the decade list Seraphine as one of the premier drummers of the decade?<\/p>\n
Seraphine was ousted from Chicago at the start of the 1990s and since then has rarely been heard from. Aside from the occasional album production, Seraphine rarely entered back into the music scene. So, imagine my surprise to find a copy of Full Circle<\/i> on my desk a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n
Excitement was certainly in the air, but so was trepidation, especially after glancing at the track list. Full Circle<\/i> features nine covers of Chicago songs, songs that are some of the band’s most popular. It\u2019s always a risky proposition to cover such well-known material — but in the end, the gamble pays off, for the most part.<\/p>\n
These days, Chicago rarely flexes its muscles as a creative band, so to hear some of the best songs reinfused with a tremendous amount of energy and eagerness wins the day. For example, \u201cMake Me Smile\u201d is performed entirely as an instrumental, with guitarist Marc Bonilla providing the fireworks with some very impressive playing.<\/p>\n
Sure, \u201cIntroduction\u201d and \u201cWest Virginia Fantasies\u201d may not resemble the horn rock of their original incarnations, but the different takes show that Seraphine and Co. were willing to take chances. It doesn\u2019t always pan out; \u201cColor My World\u201d does not benefit being transformed into a Pink Floydian-esque number, and the aforementioned \u201cWest Virginia Fantasies\u201d was never a wholly impressive number to begin with, so I don\u2019t understand its inclusion save to lead into \u201cColor My World.\u201d<\/p>\n
The non-Chicago tracks are decent, mostly consisting of covers of other artists\u2019 material. \u201cSomething Different\u201d provides an excellent demonstration of CTA\u2019s talents and \u201cSeveral Thousand\u201d is quite soulful. To be honest, I\u2019m not sure if this is a band that will be able to deliver a solid follow-up record, but as a one-shot album goes the approach is fine for now.<\/p>\n
I will admit, I had a somewhat difficult time playing Full Circle<\/i> the first few times through. These were songs that I grew up with from my first favorite band. However, Seraphine and his bandmates have insured that the legacy of Chicago remains intact through their music; these are just different approaches. It\u2019s a shame Chicago doesn\u2019t trot out these song themselves, so all the better reason for their original drummer to do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":28889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7996],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-40389","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-california-transit-authority","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40389"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}