Chicago had never had a No. 1 single before Oct. 23, 1976. That week, “If You Leave Me Now” replaced Rick Dees’ “Disco Duck” at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. It stayed there for two weeks before the Steve Miller Band’s “Rock’n Me” took over, according to Billboard’s 1976 chart history.
Finished to Fill Out the Album
Peter Cetera, the band’s bassist, wrote and sang “If You Leave Me Now” for “Chicago X.” Columbia released it as a single on July 30, 1976, per the song’s history.
It almost didn’t make the record. Band members said later that the song was finished at the last minute so the album would have enough tracks, Ultimate Classic Rock reported. Producer and manager James William Guercio played bass and acoustic guitar on the early version as placeholders, and his parts stayed on the final take.
Saxophonist Walter Parazaider barely knew the finished song. The first time he heard it on the radio, he thought it was a new Paul McCartney single. Parazaider died in June at 81 from complications of Alzheimer’s disease, Men’s Journal reported.
A Hit Far Beyond the U.S.
The single also topped Billboard’s Easy Listening chart. In the U.K., it was No. 1 for three weeks, and it reached No. 1 in Canada, Australia, Ireland and the Netherlands. By August 1978, it had sold 1.4 million copies in the U.S., Best Classic Bands noted.
It won Chicago its first Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus. Arranger Jimmie Haskell and Guercio won a second Grammy for the string arrangement, and the song was nominated for Record of the Year.
What Came After
The band had two more Hot 100 No. 1s, “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” in 1982 and “Look Away” in 1989, according to the band’s history. Cetera wasn’t around for the second one. He left in the summer of 1985 to go solo.
Chicago’s original lineup went into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2016, and the band got a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. This year Chicago is co-headlining 25 shows with Styx, with trumpeter Lee Loughnane the only original member still on stage.
“If You Leave Me Now” also helped “Chicago X” go double platinum and set up the string of soft ballads the band became known for. Robert Lamm, a founding member, didn’t like that. In the liner notes for the 1991 box set “Group Portrait,” he said “the ballad-ness that the band became identified with through the singles” drove him crazy, as quoted by Ultimate Classic Rock.
“It’s still not how we think of ourselves,” he said.
