It Was 31 Years Ago Today

No Sgt. Pepper didn't teach the band to play but someone taught these three and boy can they play! They played well enough to have a number 1 hit song on this day in June 1975. The song was Sister Golden Hair and the group was America. The group is in the photo above from left to right they are Dewey Bunnell, Dan Peek and Gerry Beckley. The 3 were son of American military personnel that were based in England. Gerry's Dad was the commanding officer of the base where they were stationed. The 3 became friends and formed a band that played on the base and then got a manager who got them concert dates. Legend has it that they took their name from a jukebox but I doubt that was the only reason they chose the name. Even though they spent little time in America they were Americans and the name ment home to them. They eventually got to record an album called...America! It was produced by Ian Samwell. It gave them three hits I Need You, Ventura Highway and their first #1 A Horse With No Name. A Horse With No Name was the first song released from the album so these guys were really an overnight success story. There next 2 albums and 3 singles yielded no hits that cracked the top 30. They were able to get the top rock producer of the era to produce their next album. Who was that? The Beatles old producer George Martin. He heard that it took America a long time to produce an album so he said he didn't want to spend that much time away from home. They had to go back to England to produce the album. They didn't want to disappoint the Beatles ex-producer so they practiced alot. Once they started production the album called Holiday was finished in 15 days. Mr. Martin said if he knew it would only take that long he would have come to the US on holiday to do the album. The album gave them the hits Tin Man peaked at #4 and Lonely People peaked at #5. Martin worked with the group again on the Hearts album, it was an inside joke of the group's to have the titles of most of their albums starte with the letter H. Hearts gave the group it's second #1 hit Sister Golden Hair. The next year America was reduced from a trio to a duo when Dan Peek, who was a Christian, left the group to go into the contemporary Christian music field. He signed with Lamb and Lion records and recorded the album All Things Are Possible. The title track even became a minor hit on the pop charts. Dewey and Gerry didn't consider replacing Dan. They decided to continue as a duo under the name America. While fans of America still made it profitable to sign the group and record albums, they still had yet to yield a hit till 1982. They recorded a song written and produced by Russ Ballard called You Can Do Magic that peaked at #8.
I took a look at Dan Peek's site to see if he had his testimony on their but I didn't find it. The way I have heard it is that when America was about to release A Horse With No Name Dan prayed to have a hit and he would tell he was a Christian. Well it was a huge hit and Dan was so busy touring, recording and traveling that he forgot to tell the world he was a Christian. His professional life was going well with all the hit records but he had personal problems in his life. That led him to realize that God was trying to get his attention to remind him of the promise that he made. So Dan announced he was a Christian and left the group to record Christian music. There is a couple of songs on the All Things Are Possible album where Dewey and Gerry sing background for Dan. So the group didn't end with Dan's last album. If you get the CD from his site you might listen to Love Was Just Another Word. I am almost certain that is one of the songs with America. Thanks for reading what was on my mind.