Robert Lamm

Robert William Lamm (born October 13, 1944) is an American keyboardist, singer and songwriter who came to fame as a founding member of the pop rock band Chicago. He wrote many of the band's biggest hits, including "Questions 67 & 68", "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?", "Beginnings", "25 or 6 to 4", "Saturday in the Park", "Dialogue (Part I & II)" and "Harry Truman".

Robert Lamm (center) performing with Earth, Wind & Fire on keytar.

Lamm was born on October 13, 1944, in Brooklyn, New York. His parents had a collection of jazz records, which were an early influence on him. At Grace Episcopal Church, Brooklyn Heights, he performed in the boys' and men's choir. In a 2003 interview, Lamm said, "My first musical training came as a member of that choir. It exposed me to some of the great sacred music from the Middle Ages, right up through Bach and into the 20th Century composers."

His mother remarried and moved to Chicago, Illinois, when he was 15 years old. He studied art in high school, particularly drawing and painting, but changed direction in college by enrolling in the music program at Roosevelt University in Chicago.

In 1967 Lamm was one of the 6 founding members of a “rock band with horns” soon to be known as “Chicago”. After recording 6 overwhelmingly successful albums, in 1974, Lamm released Skinny Boy, the only solo album from a member of Chicago before the 80s. Lamm seemingly drifted into a period of both personal and professional frustration. He emerged in 1982 with a new attitude.

A number of solo albums began to appear after Lamm relocated back to New York in 1991. Lamm formed a trio (BeckleyLammWilson) with Gerry Beckley of the band America and Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys. After Wilson's death from lung cancer in February 1998, an album was released entitled Like a Brother (2000).

All these solo albums and songs were in addition to the continued semi-active recordings by Chicago, “The Stone of Sisyphus” “Night and Day” “Chicago XXX” and “Chicago Now 36”.

Lamm has been a guest lecturer on music production at Stanford University. In 2012, he lectured at New York University on the subject of songwriting.

In Chicago's early years, Lamm used a simple setup of Hammond organ and Wurlitzer Electric Piano. After the band’s first tour of Europe he began using a Hohner Pianet. Initially, his use of the grand piano was limited to the studio until he began to use one more regularly on stage, purchasing a Steinway 10’ Grand by the early ’70’s. The Fender Rhodes electric piano became a favorite around 1972. Around 1973–1974, he added a Mellotron and Hohner clavinet in his keyboard rig and also incorporated Moog and ARP synthesizers. In the late 1970s, he also started using the Yamaha CS-80 synthesizer and possibly a Sequential Circuits Prophet 5. On a 1980 TV appearance, he played a grand piano with a Multimoog synthesizer above it. After the advent of MIDI, keyboards became superfluous. He then accessed various synthesizer sound modules via MIDI keyboard ‘controllers’, i.e. Yamaha, Kawai, Rhodes, etc. and a Yamaha keytar. Beginning in the late 80’s, he began using the Lync LN1000 keytar. As his primary keyboard, these days, he prefers the Yamaha Motif ES8 keyboard.

• 1974: Skinny Boy
• 1993: Life Is Good in My Neighborhood
• 1999: In My Head
• 2000: Like a Brother (Beckley-Lamm-Wilson)
• 2003: Subtlety & Passion
• 2004: Too Many Voices (expanded reissue of In My Head)
• 2005: Leap of Faith – Live in New Zealand
• 2006: Life is Good in My Neighborhood 2.0
• 2006: Skinny Boy 2.0
• 2008: The Bossa Project
• 2012: Living Proof
• 2012: Robert Lamm Songs: The JVE Remixes

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Lamm married his wife, Joy, in 1991. They have three daughters: Sacha, Kate and Sean.