CHICAGO INITIALLY gained fame opening for music legends such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen, and the Beach Boys, hitting its stride almost immediately after their debut effort, Chicago Transit Authority, a double album, came out in 1969.
From the beginning, Seraphine, as the drummer, was always the backbone of the operation. It was his job to keep everyone in time and on balance. He set the pace and carried it through to the end, no matter what. In 1990, after 23 years of performing, composing, and recording albums with Chicago, Seraphine experienced a jarring parting of ways with the bandmates that he considered brothers. The rift threw his life into chaos. Together they had toured the world and created one of the most enduring American songbooks of all time.
In 2007, spiritually and creatively reinvigorated, Seraphine returned to the stage with his new jazz-rock powerhouse group, California Transit Authority (CTA) often described as “Chicago on steroids”—and he made peace with his past with the refreshingly candid memoir Street Player: My Chicago Story (Wiley).
Critically acclaimed as an instrumentalist and a composer, Rolling Stone magazine has ranked “the father of jazz rock” as one of the top 100 drummers of all time.