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.
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, criticised by some as a
pale imitation of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, sent their debut
album, America (1972), to #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.
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