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Styx music biography continued...

consisted of Dennis DeYoung (vocals, keyboards), John Panozzo (drums) John Curulewski (guitar) and Glen Burtnik (bass). After garnering an enthusiastic local following, the band singed to Wooden Nickel Records and released four albums-- Styx (1972), Styx II (1973), The Serpent Is Rising (1974) and Man of Miracles (1974). Styx wouldn't gain notoriety, however, until an earlier song, the power ballad "Lady" (from Styx II), began to earn some radio time, first on WLS in Chicago and then nationwide. In the spring of 1975, nearly two years after the album had been released, "Lady" hit the top ten, and Styx II went gold after. The Grand Illusion (1977) became the group's breakthrough album, reaching triple platinum certification and spawning a top-ten hit and a radio staple in the DeYoung-penned "Come Sail Away," as well as a second radio hit, Tommy Shaw's "Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)". The album Pieces of Eight (1978) found the group moving in a more straight-ahead pop-rock direction and spawned the Shaw-penned hit singles "Renegade," and "Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)," while the Album Cornerstone (1979) yielded the group's first number one hit, the DeYoung ballad "Babe". By early 1980 "Babe" had become the band's biggest international hit and first million-selling single, solidifying their status as pop rock dynamos.



In January 1981, Styx released Paradise Theatre, a concept album that became their biggest hit, reaching number one on the Billboard pop albums chart and yielding five singles, including the top ten hits "The Best of Times" by DeYoung (#3) and "Too Much Time on My Hands" by Shaw (#9). Paradise Theater became the band's fourth consecutive multi-platinum album. Soon after, band members started to battle about the band's direction, and the release of Kilroy Was Here (1983), a rock opera concept album, would be their last group effort for several years. Styx would go on to reunite in different configurations at various times over the next three decades, and although they never quite recaptured their early successes, they played to nostalgic audiences that reveled in all of them.