Career
Dacus's career began in the mid 1970s, playing guitar on Chris Hillman's 1976 album, "Slippin' Away". He also worked on Crosby, Stills, and Nash's CSN album, doing background vocals and playing rhythm guitar. A few years later, he teamed up with Stephen Stills for several projects. On Stills Dacus has two writing credits, and on Illegal Stills he is featured prominently.
In 1978, Dacus was cast as Woof, a supporting character in the movie Hair, and about the same time, jazz-rock band Chicago selected him as a replacement guitarist and vocalist after the death of Terry Kath. Dacus was suggested to the band by former Columbia/CBS Records executive Walter Yetnikoff. Dacus' work on Columbia with Stephen Stills and Roger McGuinn made him a perfect suggestion, but he also made the Dacus suggestion as a way to keep Chicago on his label, since the band were considering working with a new label following the death of Kath.
Dacus' debut with Chicago (Hot Streets) went to #12 and platinum, but not without controversy amongst the fans. Dacus also was in the lineup for Chicago 13, which was the least commercially successful of the band's albums to that point. After the 1979 tour in support of Chicago 13, Dacus was dropped from the band without an announcement as to why. In his 2010 autobiography Street Player, original Chicago drummer Danny Seraphine stated that Dacus didn't seem to fit in with the chemistry of the group. Serpahine also cited one incident where Dacus had his own merchandise booth at a Chicago concert, which was removed when the other members of the band noticed it. Seraphine felt Dacus was being "self-serving", and it was enough of a reason to remove him from the band. Chicago used session guitarists for Chicago XIV, then added guitarist Chris Pinnick as a full-blown member following his studio work on Chicago 16.
In 1982 Dacus resurfaced, joining Badfinger for a tour, and in the late 1980s, he was involved in the Broadway musical Cats.
Read more about this topic: Donnie Dacus
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