Chicago Fire

"Love Songs" is a compilation album of romantic songs by the American band Chicago, their twenty-ninth album overall, released in 2005 through Rhino Records. Featuring a sampling of many of their love songs over the course of their long career, this set spans from their 1969 debut album to two exclusive new live recordings with Earth, Wind & Fire in 2004. Curiously enough, versions released outside of the US also include solo efforts by former member Peter Cetera, songs never recorded by the band. Released in January 2005 in time for the Valentine's Day market, "Love Songs" managed to reach #57 in the US album charts.

The sons of a Chicago fireman who gave his life in the performance of his duties, firefighting brothers Stephen 'Bull' and Brian McCaffrey carry their lifelong sibling rivalry into their work. Stephen is convinced that Brian hasn't got what it takes to remain in the fire department. Brian is transferred to a "safe" assignment, assisting arson investigator Donald 'Shadow' Rimgale, who is trying to make sense of a series of fires involving an oxygen-induced ball of fire called a backdraft.

The new Resonance Ensemble album, "Head Above Water, Feet Out Of The Fire," was released to coincide with the group's residency in Krakow from the 18th to the 24th of November this year. I returned home last week with a number of the recordings, and all the donors who directly backed the release of this double cd should be receiving their copies in the next week (depending a bit on what part of the world they live in). As originally indicated, the album includes the live performance from Hasselt, Belgium recorded in March of 2012, plus the studio session that took place before then band's performance at the Chicago Jazz Festival in August last year.

Earth, Wind & Fire is an American R&B and funk band formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1969. Also known as EWF, the band has won six Grammy Awards and four American Music Awards. Millennium was released in 1993 for their return to Warner Bros. Records after an eleven-year absence from that label. However, due to the poor sales, Warner dropped them after the album released.

An hour south of Chicago, along the shores of Lake Michigan, sits the Indiana Dunes, a protected expanse of shoreline recently designated a National Park. When Ella Williams first visited the Dunes, she was awed by the juxtaposition of its natural splendor within the surrounding industrial corridor of Northwest Indiana. “Every time I go there, it changes my life,” she says, without a hint of hyperbole.