Song:Sister Golden Hair
Album:The Complete Greatest Hits
The folk rock group America had a very strong run in the 70s. Sister Golden Hair was one of two number one hits. The group was US Air Force brats living in England. Dewey Bunnell, Gerry Beckley and Dan Peek met in high school. After Peek returned from the US from an aborted attempt to attend college, they had a quartet called Daze which became a trio called America. They played clubs in London and one of the club owners Jeff Dexter became their manager. He brought in Ian Samwell to produce. He started out as Cliff Richard's guitarist. America signed with Warner Bros. and recorded their debut album in London. Their big break came when radio stations started playing Horse With No Name and listeners thought it was Neil Young. Dewey Bunnell acknowledged Young's influence. There was a backlash but the song did top the Billboard Hot 100 in 1972. America fired Dexter and Samwell and moved to Los Angeles and produced their second album Homecoming themselves. The single Ventura Highway reached the top ten. Their third album Hat Trick didn't do that well. So they hired legendary Beatles producer George Martin and recorded the next few albums with him. Sister Golden Hair is from the 1975 album Hearts and was their second number one hit. America started to fade when Dan Peek left in 1977. He recorded for years as a Contemporary Christian artist until his death in July 2011. Beckley and Bunnell continued and left Warners for Capitol in 1979. They switched producers to Russ Ballard of Argent and he produced their final top ten hit You Can Do Magic in 1982. You can get all their hits on this Rhino comp. There were attempts to reform the original group but it never happened. Bunnell and Beckley continue to tour as America today. Here's America performing Sister Golden Hair on The Midnight Special 1975.
No comments:
Post a Comment