text: Musical style, writing, composition Keyboardist Robert Lamm, guitarist Terry Kath and bassist Peter Cetera shared lead vocals, while James Pankow, Lee Loughnane and Walter Parazaider handled all brass and woodwinds (trombone, trumpet and saxophone, clarinet and flute respectively) and Danny Seraphine played drums. (Parazaider is pictured in the album package playing flute, but doesn't actually play it on the album.) Band members added percussion during sections of a song when they weren't playing their main instrument. For example, on "I'm a Man", Pankow was on cowbell, Parazaider on tambourine, and Loughnane on claves. Lamm, Kath and Pankow were the band's main composers at this time. According to the band's producer, James William Guercio, Jimi Hendrix was an avowed fan of Kath's playing. According to the album's original liner notes, the solo performance of Kath on "Free Form Guitar" was created without the use of any pedals. In a nod to Hendrix's guitar expressionism (Hendrix most notably used wah and fuzz pedals), Kath instead plugged directly into his studio amplifier and improvised the entire track in one take for the purpose of pure tone.
  The album is one of two not to have any songwriting contributions from Cetera during his tenure in the band, the other being Chicago V. He started writing songs with the second album, Chicago.
  Recording and production
  Because of dealings between the recording company and the group's producer, James William Guercio, the group's studio time was limited to only five days of basic tracking and five days of overdubbing by the recording company. According to Guercio, the album was "done 8-track."