Dewey Bunnell, Gerry Beckley and Dan Peek were America, a very successful 70's folk-rock band who scored their biggest hit with their first hit, a cover of the Neil Young song A Horse With No Name in 1972, which hit #1 in the U.S. and ironically became their ONLY top 40 hit in the UK peaking at #3.

http://musicmoz.org/img/editors/sounddude/america2.jpghttp://us.ent2.yimg.com/musicfinder.yahoo.com/images/yahoo/henry_diltz/america/america.jpg

Hits continued like Ventura Highway, which was their second UK hit, Tin Man, Lonely People, Daisy Jane, Muscrat Love, and their second US #1 with the wonderful 1976 song Sister Golden Hair, just to name a few :)

When Dan Peek left the band for a career in Christian Music around '77, they continued on as a duo, and entered a dry spell of no top 40 hits in the late 70's

They attempted to bring their blend of folk-rock into the 80's with a comeback, and they pulled it off in 1982 with the wonderful U.S. top 10 hit You Can Do Magic, which became their third and final UK hit, and the almost U.S. top 40 hit Right Before Your Eyes

Their 1983 U.S. top 40 hit The Border became their last in the U.S.

Click a link to hear a working sound clip:
You Can Do Magic (http://mfile.akamai.com/3171/rm/muze.download.akamai.com/2890/us/usrm/603/427603_1_18.ram?obj=v11019)
Right Before Your Eyes (http://mfile.akamai.com/3171/rm/muze.download.akamai.com/2890/us/usrm/603/427603_1_19.ram?obj=v11019)
The Border (http://mfile.akamai.com/3171/rm/muze.download.akamai.com/2890/us/usrm/603/427603_1_20.ram?obj=v11019)

http://kingbiscuit.com/america/jpg/album/italmagf.jpg
http://kingbiscuit.com/america/jpg/album/ukbordrf.jpg

Thanks for the info on 'America'! :)

'A Horse With No Name' remains one of my all time favs - just a absolute classic. :yesnod:

I think America's most beautiful song is "I Need You"

http://cdzlimited.org/rock/A_B/america.html


Dan

I think America's most beautiful song is "I Need You"

http://cdzlimited.org/rock/A_B/america.html


Dan

That was a beautiful song indeed :yesnod:

I love 'You can do magic', 'Sister Golden Hair' and 'Horse with no name'. But what was that song 'Horse with no name' about anyway? :confused:

I love 'You can do magic', 'Sister Golden Hair' and 'Horse with no name'. But what was that song 'Horse with no name' about anyway? :confused:


Highway Highlight (from the box set booklet)

The America album was released in Britain to moderate response. Though "I Need You" was discussed as an initial single, Warner Bros. asked the band to come up with another song that would break them on the radio. So, five months after the album came out, they went into a small London studio and demoed four new tunes. Among them was an enigmatic Bunnell number with a catchy rhythm that was initially called "Desert Song." Much to the band's surprise, that was the song that Warners chose to release.

The band went into Morgan Sound Studios (where Beckley had played bass on demo sessions a few years before) to record the song, with Samwell producing and Kim Haworth brought in on drums. At Samwell's suggestion, "Desert Song" was retitled "A Horse With No Name."

A tune as famous as this one deserves a detailed explanation, though Bunnell suggests that its meaning has evolved over time: "I was messing around with some open tunings--I tuned the A string way down to an E, and I found this little chord, and I just moved my two fingers back and forth, and the entire song came from basically three chords. I wanted to capture the imagery of the desert, because I was sitting in this room in England, and it was rainy. The rain was starting to get to us, and I wanted to capture the desert and the heat and the dryness."

The imagery came from Dewey's childhood: "I had spent a good deal of time poking around in the high desert with my brother when we lived at Vandenberg Air Force Base [in California]. And we'd drive through Arizona and New Mexico. I loved the cactus and the heat. I was trying to capture the sights and sounds of the desert, and there was an environmental message at the end. But it's grown to mean more for me. I see now that this anonymous horse was a vehicle to get me away from all the confusion and chaos of life to a peaceful, quiet place."

Bunnell adds an aside about his choice of language in the song: "I have taken a lot of poetic license in my use of grammar, and I always cringe a little bit at my use of 'aint's,' like 'ain't no one for to give you no pain' in "Horse." I've never actually spoken that way, but I think it conveys a certain honesty when you're not picking and choosing your words, and you use that kind of colloquialism."

"A Horse With No Name" broke more than the rules of English--it broke America as a major recording act in Britain, the U.S., and Europe. After reaching #3 in the U.K., it was released in the States, where it topped the Pop chart for three weeks in March/April 1972. It stirred some controversy--stations in Kansas City and elsewhere banned the song for supposed drug references ("horse" being a street name for heroin at the time).

The song's resemblance to Neil Young's work stirred some grumbling as well. Coincidentally or not, it was "A Horse With No Name" that bumped Young's "Heart Of Gold" out of the #1 slot on the U.S. Pop chart. "I know that virtually everyone, on first hearing, assumed it was Neil," Bunnell says. "I never fully shied away from the fact that I was inspired by him. I think it's in the structure of the song as much as in the town of my voice. It did hurt a little, because we got some pretty bad backlash. I've always attributed it more to people protecting their own heroes more than attacking me."

http://kingbiscuit.com/america/gif/song005.gif

On the first part of the journey
I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound

I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
La, la ...

After two days in the desert sun
My skin began to turn red
After three days in the desert fun
I was looking at a river bed
And the story it told of a river that flowed
Made me sad to think it was dead

You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
La, la ...

After nine days I let the horse run free
'Cause the desert had turned to sea
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
there was sand and hills and rings
The ocean is a desert with it's life underground
And a perfect disguise above
Under the cities lies a heart made of ground
But the humans will give no love

You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
La, la ...

http://kingbiscuit.com/america/song/song005.htm

Dan

I love 'You can do magic', 'Sister Golden Hair' and 'Horse with no name'. But what was that song 'Horse with no name' about anyway? :confused:
Those were 2 of my favorite also! "Horse With No Name" my guess it may had to do with drugs....it was the 70's it could of been about anything! :laugh: :laugh: