process this news and the fact is, we still are. The good news is we have a wonderful medical facility here and I have a very good doctor. I am working hard and not going to give up. With new treatments and therapy, along with my family's love and support, I feel very positive about the future. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. I wish you and your families all the best in 2021 and always. He was a college student at Chicago's DePaul University, earning his bachelor's degree in classical clarinet performance, when he formed a band, the Missing Links, with guitarist/vocalist Terry Kath and drummer Danny Seraphine, and hooked up with their future producer, Jimmy Guercio. Then, under the name the Big Thing, Parazaider, Kath, Seraphine, trumpet player Lee Loughnane, trombonist James Pankow and keyboard player/vocalist Robert Lamm - set out to combine a core rock n' roll combo with a prominent horn section in a way that hadn't been done before, with the arguable exception of Blood, Sweat Tears, which came up in the same era. I think for some guys in the group, it was harder to cope with the success than others, Parazaider said. I don't think there were any of us that sat down around my kitchen table that day in February of '67 and said, Hey, our goal is to be famous.' He was referring to a meeting at his parents' house on Feb 15, 1967 in which they formally conceptualized the band. We sat around my kitchen table and said: Let's make a band that's the best in the world.' My idea was to make horns an integral part of a rock band, he told Classic Rock. In that sense, we blazed the trail. We had lofty ideas and hopes. We were young and ignorant. In 1968, they were joined by Peter Cetera, changed their name to Chicago Transit Authority and signed with Columbia Records. Their debut album, a two-LP set, came out the following year. The group's moniker had been shorted to just Chicago by the time they released a sophomore album. Founding member Kath accidentally shot himself in 1978,, not long after Chicago XI came out in 1977, and his loss has often been cited as one of the reasons the band subsequently pursued a more balladic direction. Their work with producer David Foster put the spotlight more squarely on songs sung and written by Cetera in the early 1980s, before the singer went solo in 1985. Jason Scheff, son of Elvis Presley's bassist Jerry Scheff, replaced Cetera as bassist/singer until 2016. Terry and I were teenage friends and it was devastating for me, he said of his partner's 1977 death. When I heard the news on the phone, I almost went to my knees. It was like being hit with a sledgehammer. We thought, Maybe this is the way the band should end.' We had fan mail saying: Please, don't stop the band now.' That really helped us. But I have to be honest - there are some things you never get over. Lamm and Pankow have retired from the band. Loughnane is now the final original member still on board. The group's commercial success in later years eclipsed the band's experimental origins. I don't think we get the respect we should, he admitted. Maybe that's the mother hen in me. But when I think about it, what do I want? Selling over a hundred million records is amazing. When her father's time appeared to be at hand a few days ago, Felicia Parazaider imagined him being reunited with Terry Kath in the afterlife soon. My dad is making the journey home, she wrote. It looks like 1-3 days of his beautiful being blessing us in this earthly plane. And then he's probably going to play some music, laugh that great big laugh, don that magnificent smile, free of pain and suffering finally, in the next place. Maybe with Terry, my Uncle, his folks, all his relations. Mitakuye Oyasin. This is it. The moment I feel I have been readying myself for these last 6 years. Maybe my whole life. So if you love my father, do something for me, play some music. Anything. And play it loud. He loved doing that. Let's bless him up y'all. His wife, JacLynn, told TMZ that we were married for 59 years and we had 59 wonderful years.