2013 CTA (California Transit Authority) – Sacred Ground

Sacred Ground is the second studio album by California Transit Authority. The gentlemen needed five sound studios to bring their second child into the world. The “California” from the band name can be found in the place of all the studios used: California. In contrast to the first album, which mainly consisted of old, reused material from the Chicago era , this album consists of almost entirely new material. The music is strongly reminiscent of the early days of the band Chicago, the first five albums.

In early 2006, Danny Seraphine, the original drummer and founding member of the rock group Chicago, debuted a new band, California Transit Authority (CTA), featuring himself on drums, Marc Bonilla on lead guitar, Mick Mahan on bass guitar, Ed Roth and Peter Fish on keyboards, Mike Wallace on guitar, and Tower of Power singer Larry Braggs on vocals. CTA’s first studio album, Full Circle, released 2007, contained several Chicago songs. The band’s second CD Sacred Ground released on March 21, 2013 shows a band with the confidence to record mostly new numbers. The album includes two well chosen older tunes to round out Sacred Ground. The first is Al Kooper’s “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know,” found on the Kooper-led debut album by Blood, Sweat, and Tears. The other is a reworking of Serpahine’s own composition recorded with his previous group Chicago, a song called “Take Me Back to Chicago.