How Chicago almost left a top hit behind — and why it’s fine to say ‘soft rock’

nypost.com:

Chicago — the soft-rock gods who ruled the ’70s airwaves — almost left one of their definitive hits behind.The year was 1976, the band was working on “Chicago X,” and then-lead singer and bassist Peter Cetera had this one track — “If You Leave Me Now” — he really believed in, even if everybody else needed convincing.“[He] had a hard time getting that song on the album,” founding Chicago member Robert Lamm, 78, told The Post about the Cetera-penned tune that took the troupe of musicians in a radically different direction.“We were rocking and jazzing, and then that song was the softest, most beautiful ballad that you could think of.

It went No. 1 around the world, and we never could get over that [sound],” Lamm said.“If You Leave Me Now” — the airy godmother of such signature Chicago ballads as “Baby, What a Big Surprise,” “You’re the Inspiration” and their second No.

1 single, 1982’s “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” —  will no doubt be on the set list when the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band plays an intimate benefit for Musicians on Call at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square on Sunday.

The charity — which dispatches live musicians to hospitals and other healthcare facilities — provides a sonic tonic for sick patients. “The doctors and nurses noticed that the healing power of music helped everyone, no matter what kind of shape they were in,” Lee Loughnane, 76, who plays trumpet in the famous Chicago horn section, told The Post.Loughnane, Lamm — on keyboards and vocals — and trombonist James Pankow are the three original members still with the now-10-man band, 56 years after it was formed in Chicago.