Chicago certainly isn’t the most glamorous of cities, what with its hateful winters and generally contemptible manner of sustaining itself. Nor is it the most artistically renowned, given the dearth of acts whose name anyone would associate with the Second City.
Still, for all its flaws, the city has produced more than its fair share of memorable acts; yet for every Kanye West or Common rapping about Chi City or Smashing Pumpkins anthem referencing "the city by the lake," plenty of other artists found little reason to keep calling it home — although once out of town, some found fewer reasons to miss Chicago than others.
Patti Smith
Most commonly (and most logically) associated with the punk and post-folkie movement of early 1970s New York City, Smith was born in Chicago in 1946 — only to almost instantly flee the city with family to Deptford Township, New Jersey. By the time Smith was ready to set out on her own, New York City was teeming with too much opportunity and potential (and eventually legendary music) to pass up, and the success of 1975’s Horses gave no reason to look elsewhere for satisfaction.
Chicago Claim? None, really. None of Smith’s catalog made much direct commentary on the city, although Smith later admitted a fondness for revisiting her childhood home in Humboldt Park.
Curtis Mayfield
The success of the Super Fly soundtrack (and that film’s New York setting) made him an assumed product of the 1970s East Coast soul scene (Philadelphia or New York City, take your pick), but Mayfield actually built his chops and his career in his hometown, Chicago. Born in 1942, Mayfield’s first taste of success came with The Impressions, a local group that reached national-level success in the mid 1960s on the strength of Mayfield’s civil rights anthems: "Check Out Your Mind," "Keep On Pushing," and, most famously, "People Get Ready." After leaving The Impressions in 1970, Mayfield enjoyed a highly successful solo run during the 1970s while releasing his work through his own Curtom Records label, but lagging sales ultimately led to Curtom’s shuttering and Mayfield’s move to Atlanta in 1980, where he would remain until his death in 1999.
Chicago Claim? Entirely. As the driving force behind one of the city’s most famous groups, as well as actively collaborating with other Chicago acts (The Staple Singers, Jerry Butler, and Gene Chandler, to name a few), Mayfield’s work stands among some of the best ever produced by a Chicagoan — and one who didn’t even have to go elsewhere to make it big.
Styx
Every city needs a band writing rock operas about robot-aided prison breaks. Every city needs a band accused of hiding Satanic messages in its records. Every city needs a guitarist to go on and form an eternally-derided supergroup. In Styx, Chicago had all of these in one, be it the wildly popular Kilroy Was Here (and its signature track "Mr. Roboto"), itself released in response to accusations of Satanism (Satanism! From Styx!) in the track "Snowblind," or Tommy Shaw’s eventual detour into the widely embraced yet perpetually mocked Damn Yankees. Styx, accused in hindsight of being good for nothing, were in fact everything a band of their day and style could aspire to.
Chicago Claim? Big time. With all five founding members hailing from the Second City, Styx also spent the entirety of their four-year, hard-rocking, pre-top 40 life on Chicago-based Wooden Nickel Records — and the group even gave a nod to their city and its namesake contemporary with the uptempo brass bar rock of "Back to Chicago," from 1990’s Edge of the Century.
Nils Lofgren
Made famous first as a sideman for Neil Young, then even more famous as a sideman for Bruce Springsteen, Lofgren is perhaps the best example of the "here and gone" Chicago musician — literally born in Chicago, then jetted off to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. by the time he entered grade school. By 17, he was working with Young on 1970’s After the Gold Rush, and throughout the 1970s released a string of acclaimed solo records. In 1984, Springsteen came calling in need of a replacement for the departed Steve Van Zandt, and during the E Street Band’s hiatus in the 1990s continued releasing solo albums and, on two occasions, toured as part of the 1989 and 1992 iterations of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band. In the end, one of Chicago’s most famous creations became one of the great helping hands for the favored sons of Winnipeg, Asbury Park, and Liverpool.
Chicago Claim? Almost non-existent. Lofgren was known as a bit of a musical prodigy when still a child, but that was for his progress on the accordion—an instrument certainly less frequently associated with the guy responsible for most of the Springsteen catalog’s few blistering solos (although fans of the National Football League may recognize Lofgren from his collaboration with legendary coach/broadcaster John Madden on 2002’s Best of the All-Madden Team).
Nat King Cole
Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Nathaniel Adams Coles’ family came to Chicago in 1923, settling in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side. By 1936, young Nathaniel had adopted the stage moniker "Nat Cole" and joined brother Eddie’s band, Eddie Cole’s Solid Swingsters, as a pianist. The group made recordings for Decca through the 1930s, and toured as part of the "Shuffle Along" show in 1937. While on the road, Cole married a dancer he’d met and moved with her to Los Angeles. At the same time, Cole’s renown on the piano earned him the nickname "King," and the birth of the legend was complete: Chicago’s Nathaniel Adams Coles was now history’s Nat "King" Cole, a name and a man rooted in the South Side but ultimately, through a string of classics beginning like "Straighten Up and Fly Right" and "Unforgettable," becoming an entire nation’s treasure.
Chicago Claim? Undeniable. Cole recorded 1959’s Everytime I Feel the Spirit with the renowned choir of the First Church of Deliverance, and in 1961 the city named a park on 85th St. for its hometown pianist and singer.
