Lee Loughnane laughs when I tell him he might be the trumpet-playing embodiment of Christmas at this point. “That’s the new one for me. The band that won’t go away,” he says, amused. Chicago’s been around for well over fifty years now, and their newest release, Greatest Christmas Hits, keeps the sleigh bells ringing well past the snow season.
“This one’s a compilation of three Christmas albums,” Loughnane explains. “Warner Rhino picked what they thought were the best tracks. I think they chose well. It opens with ‘Let It Snow,’ which was our biggest seller, and I sang on that one. I’d brought in the arrangement thinking someone else would sing lead. I told them, ‘Let me try a few lines. If it doesn’t work, pull me out.’ And it worked out pretty good.”
It worked out very good. Chicago’s first Christmas album, Chicago XXV: The Christmas Album, dropped in 1998 — roughly the band’s 25th anniversary — and has since turned into a surprisingly durable tradition. “We were recording in the middle of summer,” Loughnane recalls. “Roy Bittan, who produced it, decorated the whole studio with lights and trees. It was like walking into Santa’s workshop in June. He wanted us to feel like it was Christmas, and it did.”
The idea was never to make a generic holiday cash-in. “We treated it like any other Chicago record,” he says. “We called it Chicago-ized Christmas music. We arranged the classics as if they were our own songs — new rhythms, new harmonies, the horns leading the way. You don’t always know it’s a Christmas song until you hit the first verse. People tell me they play those records all year long, because they don’t sound like your typical holiday tunes.”
That approach even extended to originals. One standout, “Child’s Prayer,” co-written by Loughnane, brought the band’s kids into the studio to sing. “That was the most fun we had,” he says. “We brought cameras instead of instruments. It was chaos — beautiful chaos.”
When I ask if writing a Christmas song feels different than a standard Chicago tune, he shrugs. “Actually, it was more fun. Less competition, I guess,” he says. “You know the song’s going on the record, so you just enjoy it. You keep the melody recognizable but sneak in your own changes. Trick ’em into it. Like, ‘this isn’t a Christmas song… oh wait, it is.’”
He laughs again when I bring up the great dream of every musician — to land the one holiday hit that buys your retirement. “Mariah did it. McCartney did it. I’m not one of those guys,” he admits. “I’m more of a two-hit wonder. But those two hits have given me a pretty great life.”
Chicago’s still touring relentlessly — something of a miracle for a band that’s been on the road since Nixon was in office. “We don’t change the set much night to night anymore,” he says. “There’s too much production now — lights, cues, movement. You’ve got to know your map. The goal is to start with a bang, bring it down, build it back up, and have everyone standing by the end. If they’re not up at the end of the show, you’re in trouble.”
Still, they make it look easy. “We don’t get tired of the songs,” Loughnane insists. “They’re still interesting to us. We try to make them sound like we’re playing them for the first time. The trick is to hit every note right. You blow one, you just smile and say, ‘I’ll get it tomorrow.’”
This year also saw the band releasing a new cover of The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour,” something that goes back to their early club days. “We played a lot of Beatles when we were starting out,” he says. “When Sgt. Pepper came out, we were obsessed. We even recorded ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ live in Japan once — it didn’t sound quite as good as it does now,” he grins. “We finally got it right.”
Naturally, I ask if he’s heard the new Beatles song, “Now and Then.” “Oh yeah,” he says immediately. “That AI stuff is wild. Separating John’s vocal from the piano — it’s beyond magical. It’s not their best song, but hearing them all together again like that… it’s special.”
Next year marks more milestones for Chicago: Chicago VII turns 50, Chicago 17 hits 40, and “Call On Me” officially turns half a century old. Loughnane laughs when I point it out. “I hadn’t even thought of that. We’re too busy! I like to think of it as being twenty years old with fifty years of experience.”
They’ll spend next year on the road again, including a joint tour with Earth, Wind & Fire that Loughnane can’t wait for. “We play a set, they play a set, and then we both come back out together for a six-song encore — three of theirs, three of ours. It’s a blast. I keep saying: we should do the Super Bowl together. Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire. You heard it here first.”
He’s joking. Mostly. But when a band’s been at it this long — still playing, still recording, still decorating studios like Christmas morning — you get the feeling that if Chicago says it, they’ll probably make it happen.
Watch the interview above and then check out the video below.
