MusicUK

Michelle Kath Sinclair still has a vivid memory of her father, original Chicago guitarist Terry Kath, who died nearly 40 years ago when she was only about two. She and her parents were traveling in a boat near a Wisconsin lodge owned by her grandparents. "I was on my mom's lap," she tells Rolling Stone. "[My father] was driving the boat and he said, 'Oh, we've got to turn around because the dam is up here.' We turned around, and that was the memory. I was totally questioning it for such a big portion of my life. I thought it was a dream. And my mom was like, 'No. That happened. I can't believe you remember that. You were probably five, six months old.'"



Sinclair never really got to know her father, though his legend loomed large. In the early Seventies, Terry Kath contributed standout guitar work – famously admired by Jimi Hendrix and other giants of the instrument – and soulful vocal performances that were key features of Chicago's progressive jazz-rock sound. But at the peak of his career, on January 23rd, 1978, Kath died in a gun accident at the age of 31, a tragedy that effectively marked the end of Chicago's first successful era, and that still resonates with his friends and loved ones.

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