America
 America
was formed in London by Dan Peek, Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell
where their folks were stationed in US military bases in the United
Kingdom. In fact, if the three army brats had named themselves after
the place they got together rather than where their parents came from,
they would have been called West Ruislip!
It was an ironic twist for a band steeped in
American country rock and named after their homeland. After a low-key
start, performing in folk clubs, they auditioned at the offices of
Warner Brothers, where the trio carried guitars into the office and
played their entire first album, plus a song called Horse With No
Name. Warners promptly released this as a single and it
became a worldwide chart-topper in 1972 - and remains today a staple
track of classic rock radio.
America's accessible folk-rock style, criticized by some as a pale imitation of Crosby, Stills, Nash and
Young, sent
their debut album, America (1972), to Number 1 in the States. This
was closely followed by a second Top 10 album, Homecoming
(1972) and the ambitious Hat Trick (1973), a commercial failure
but arguably one of country rock's great lost albums. The band's
response to this lack of sales was a characteristically pragmatic
decision - they brought in George Martin as producer.
Martin echoed his work with The
Beatles, wrapping
inventive arrangements around direct songs on Holiday (1974),
Hearts (1975), Hideaway (1976) and Harbour
(1977), and giving them a second US chart-topper in 1975 with
Sister Golden Hair.
Meanwhile the arrivals of David Dickey and Willie
Leacox allowed the band to reproduce the studio sound in a live
setting. The band's style, simpler and poppier than other country rock
giants, found acclaim almost everywhere except the UK, where they gave
up gigging in 1974. In 1977, Peek's new-found Christianity led to his
departure for more spiritual musical pastures. Electing to continue as
a duo, Beckley and Bunnell signed to Capitol Records, and targeted a
more MOR audience.
As the 70s petered out, America could console
themselves with the thought that they had out-gigged and out-recorded
most of the country rock competition and outsold them all apart from
The Eagles.
1982 saw America's return to the US Top 10 with
the single You Can Do Magic, which even dented the bottom end
of the UK charts. In 1985, unable to secure a high-profile record
deal, they parted company from Capitol Records and since then the
duo's CV has ranged from song writing for Wild Man Fischer to session
work on a Simpsons TV tie-in album. Their own material was
dominated by re-issues, though 1994 saw a return to the studio with
Hourglass, which did well commercially and with the critics.
Although America have tended to be seen as bland,
they have maintained a huge international fan base, and in a few
surprising quarters, too - British indie-dance act Ultramarine
dedicated their brilliant 1992 album, Every Man And Woman Is A
Star, to Dewey.
A measure of the faith the band had managed to
rekindle by the mid nineties was the long term contract they signed
with Oxygen records. Human Nature (1998) being the first
result. Billboard magazine called it 'Vintage America,' a good
description for a sound which now combined the classic AOR angle with
a hint of the folksy roots of the seventies.
| The
Band |
Dewey Bunnell
Guitar/vocals
Dan Peek
Guitar/vocals
Gerry Beckley
Guitar, keyboards, bass, vocals |
David Dickey
Bass
|
Willie Leacox
Drums |
|
|
