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S7: E:10 - America (Gerry Beckley & Dewey Bunnell) - From London Roots to Global Fame
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Date: November 27, 2024
Name of podcast: Backstage Pass Radio
S7: E:10 - America (Gerry Beckley & Dewey Bunnell) - From London Roots to Global Fame
SHOW SUMMARY:
Get ready for an unforgettable conversation with the legendary musicians Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell from the iconic band America. Join us as we journey back to their formative years in London, where their love for music and shared influences like Crosby, Stills, Nash, and the Beatles sparked the creation of unforgettable hits like "A Horse With No Name." Discover how their unique blend of harmonies and acoustic sounds catapulted them to international fame, earning them accolades such as a Grammy award and a prestigious star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Gerry and Dewey also open up about their current lives, balancing time between California, Australia, and Wisconsin, while staying connected to nature and creativity.
Ever wondered about the story behind the band's name, America? We'll explore this intriguing tale, inspired by a trend of naming bands after places and a nostalgic reference to a jukebox called the Americana. Listen as Gerry and Dewey reminisce about their high school band days and their enduring love for acoustic guitars, which have defined their sound over the years. Reflect on the evolution of band names and the sentimental value of liner notes, offering a glimpse into the legacy that names and music leave behind.
Dive into the creative minds of Gerry and Dewey as they unveil their songwriting process, breaking down how their hits came to life without a one-size-fits-all formula. Hear about the surprising success of "You Can Do Magic," penned by another songwriter, and how it reignited their career in the 1980s. From unexpected collaborations to writing soundtracks that found popularity in far-flung places, this episode is a celebration of America's enduring legacy and their remarkable impact on the music world.
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Your Host,
Randy Hulsey
I have a couple of gentlemen on the show who met sometime right after high school and once they met, the rest is history. I hope you're all doing great. It's Randy Hulsey with Backstage Pass Radio. Fifty-four years ago, the band America formed in London and they quickly rose to fame with songs like Tin man, you Can Do Magic and A Horse With no Name. They went on to have mega billboard success and landed a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. They are in the Vocal Group Hall of Fame and they are a Grammy award-winning act. I will chat with Jerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell of the legendary band America when we return.
Speaker 2:This is Backstage Pass Radio, the podcast that's designed for the music junkie with a thirst for musical knowledge. Hi, this is Adam Gordon, and I want to thank you all for joining us today. Make sure you like, subscribe and turn alerts on for this and all upcoming podcasts. And now here's your host of Backstage Pass Radio, randy Halsey Randy.
Speaker 1:Halsey, Jerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell. It's a pleasure to see you guys and have you on the show. Welcome.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Randy. And where are you guys calling home these days?
Speaker 4:That's a good question. I personally split my time. I'm right now in our home in Venice, california, okay, and the rest of the year I'm in Sydney, australia. I'm married to an Australian and I have permanent residence, so kind of between those two, and I'm similar in that there's two places involved.
Speaker 3:I'm coming to you from Wisconsin right now northern Wisconsin, where my wife and I have had a little cottage on a pretty little lake for 20 odd years. She's originally from wisconsin, so, but we split our time too back and now california, as it were. That's a long story, but we lived in california most of our marriage, which is 22 years, sure, and move back. Yeah, we're back. Yeah, so uh, californ, california and Wisconsin.
Speaker 1:So I guess during the colder months do you get out of Wisconsin and get over to California. Is that kind of the mindset?
Speaker 3:there, yeah, California for winters, Wisconsin. I do love it up here in Wisconsin and I'm kind of a nature boy. We've always loved the outdoors and the lake itself and fishing and boating and birds and rocks and things Right. I try and find that wherever.
Speaker 1:I live Sure. You know, jerry, I was going to tell you that I think I'm like on 110 episodes now and I had a band they are a let's call them a YouTube cover band that has gone viral. They're a group called the Hindley street country club and they're out of adelaide, australia, and it's phenomenal. These guys are covering all kinds of artists and they're just phenomenal musicians, but it's the only artist. I did have one from new zealand, which is not too far from from australia, but that's the only australian artist that I've had on my show from adelaide.
Speaker 4:So you haven't. You haven't had Keith Urban on no, no, no, I think he's doing Fallon tonight. I know Keith.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, I might have to lean on you a little bit then. Yeah, yeah, share with the listeners the backstory on how you guys came to know one another.
Speaker 3:Well, I'll jump in and then you will cross your friends here. But pretty much the story is we've told over the many years is that we did start in england a band called america, but we're americans and we were american kids in high school I say kids because we were like 16, 17, 18 when we met and graduated from an American school there in London in 1969. So during those years 67, 8, 9, whatever we were when we met, we had this in common Music was our thing. We each played guitars and stuff.
Speaker 3:And I actually first saw Jerry. When I saw him he was in an existing band there and I saw him on stage, I think for the first time before. I saw him in the halls of school playing a Beatle bass a Hoffner Beatle bass, I believe. And then, anyway, it was really great. And then Dan Peake, our third member, who's not with us anymore. Rest in peace, dan, but he rode the school bus to school with me. So that's how the three of us got together. And, jerry, you want to pick it up from there with the America part.
Speaker 4:We played in. All three of us played in high school bands Never all three of us together, but I was in a band with Dan. Du was in a band with me. We didn't all, but we knew each other. The graduating class was only about 100 people but every Friday there was a team club on the base that had and one of our bands would be playing the top 40 stuff. So all of our training was this kind of learn what the top 40 stuff was.
Speaker 4:But at 69, as you would know, randy was amazing history Just what was going on musically with crowd of stills and Nash and James Taylor and Joey and all of these things were blowing up and the three of us were individually starting to get our acoustics and write our own material. So it was virtually by the summer, right after we graduated, that Dewey and I were playing each other our songs OK, I've got this little song I'm working on and Dan went for a short semester, which didn't work out in the States, and came back. And Dan had been writing, which didn't work out in the States and came back and Dan had been writing. So it was only about six months in the start of 70 that the three of us were in one of our houses or even in a car, sometimes singing these new tunes, and that was like Riverside and I Need you and Three Roses, basically what became the first album.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you mentioned the Beatles and I was wondering did any of you guys take inspiration from the Beatles, or was there other musicians at the time that really was more formidable to you guys that were really sculpting you and your sound?
Speaker 3:we were all pretty inspired. If you were a music lover of any kind, whether you're a player or not, you love the Beatles. I mean, jerry and I and Dan had always, you know, shared that we love the beat. The Beach Boys originally were that sound. I remember when I first picked up a guitar and started plunking and I'm an unschooled player, never really, uh, took lessons or anything and I just pick out notes on surf songs, surf instrumentals, adventures, the you know uh, dick dale and the deltones, that kind of stuff. And then the beach boys music exploded in that, that vocal thing.
Speaker 3:My family was fairly musical in that they played records that nobody played an instrument. But you know, the the everly brothers were played around our house and stuff like that. We've always agreed that those vocal harmonies were a thing that really got us the beatles. By then we were a little bit older. They came shortly on the heels of my knowledge of them after the beach boys that I was there for a minute and you know it was those songs, it was song structure, it was fantastic choruses and guitars and that was really so. Then, yes, we built on that Sure, became ravenous for whatever was released, the whole British invasion of music and the American artists that Jerry's referring to. Yeah, that we listened to the birds in Buffalo, springfield, and and what came out of that became now that was a focus. Wow, these are building on those melodies and songs that we love, with the Beach Boys and the Beatles, and you know, it just exploded. There was so much to reference.
Speaker 1:Isn't it magical how the harmony, the voices come together in a harmony. I mean I can remember in high school singing in the harmony. The voice has come together in a harmony. I mean I can remember in high school singing in the choir and there's just nothing like the meshing of three or four part harmonies. That it's just something magical about that.
Speaker 4:I used to say because everybody says I mean, this is obviously such a stock answer. The Beatles and the Beach Boys, you know, but it's hard to avoid, they were massively successful. They were massively successful, they were massively great. Every one of them was doing one or two albums a year, so there was always new material. So I used to kind of default to the, because Du and I in particular are half English, we might have leaned a bit more on the British invasion and all of the you know Yardbirds and all of that stuff.
Speaker 3:So I would say kind of mid-atlantic which is my term for half kind of english and half american.
Speaker 4:But if you think that beach west california, mid-atlantic is not geographically exactly, sure, but we get the term well, we we talked about, you know, australia.
Speaker 1:We talked about the uk, um, and we've talked about harmonies. Like, were you guys ever inspired by the Brothers Gibb? Like, because I'm a huge fan of these guys, like they don't write bad songs, I just love them. So I don't know if there was any inspiration taken from.
Speaker 4:I'd say, if you had to pick after those top two, I'd put those guys maybe even at three. If not, we actually did mining disaster in our very earliest america. Wow, and the band man was kind of a band man came from mining disaster, this kind of just strumming, a minor yeah kind of thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we were huge still massachusetts those songs before they went to full blown disco thing. Yes, yes, I mean those songs. They were really, you know, they were brothers and obviously similar to the Beach Boys in that sense that their voice they probably sang, since they were little kids, you know, and that blend you were talking about, yes, just incredible.
Speaker 1:Well, they say that no voices will ever harmonize better than that of siblings. Right, they're just something about sibling voices. No voices will ever harmonize better than that of siblings right, they're just something about sibling voices. Share with the listeners how you guys came up with the name America, since you know like there's this connection with the UK and America. Like, how did America the name come about for you guys?
Speaker 4:We were starting to get offers and play pubs and things. Okay, what are we going to call ourselves? And there had already been ended up being very good friends of ours. But the chicago was originally called chicago transit authority, and the second album they dropped the cta part and they just became chicago. There had been a band called the united states of america that just kind of came and went. That were on a cbs compilation called the rock machine turned you on, which was a thing to feature cbs artists. So that idea of calling yourself a place or god forbid, a country, you know, or something, was not like our invention, but we just figured who are americans and it was a way to tell us something about who's those guys. Those are those American dudes. So anyway, that's, that's the story. There's a. There's also an anecdote about it. There was a jukebox called the Americana where the do and Dan were working briefly and I think that was more. We took that as a sign you know, americana, there you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had heard something about the juke box, but I wasn't sure what the story was behind that yeah, we're never sure which came first none of us really have a a memory of the exact, exact time and why we said america or how about this other names?
Speaker 4:was there ever another?
Speaker 3:it was never another name. The high school band name that I always remember was the days, the band jerry, that you had d-a-z-e. I still like that name, the days, but uh, I but we didn't even call ourselves the days, we were just nothing well if you.
Speaker 1:If you look back, I think you guys picked the right name. I mean, look at the success that you've had over the years for crying out loud.
Speaker 3:You know you got a lot of mileage out of that.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 4:You know, names, not that they aren't incredibly important, but they start to kind of fade into just being a term that represents the music. Nobody sits down to analyze what Pink Floyd means. You know what I mean. It's just it becomes a representation of the hopefully huge catalog of music that you create.
Speaker 3:Well, you get those rare. As Jerry has said, whatever you do, don't Google America.
Speaker 1:Well, you do get those.
Speaker 1:You get those one off. Weird guys like myself that was always the kid that ran out to the music store, bought the record never would put the record on. First I read the liner notes because I always wanted to understand who were the musicians who played what instrument. Where was this stuff recorded? So when we talk about band names a lot of times, I guess for most people it doesn't matter too much, but I love the stories behind the song and the stories like how all of that came about. I just find it intriguing and uh, but out of 20 people I might be the only one that finds it that way.
Speaker 4:I don't know, I'm just I think liner notes, liner notes were huge. Everybody loved it. That even on our very first album we list Dewey acoustic six string, jerry piano. I mean we we must've insisted on that because we thought that's very cool to say we played what on. You know, details, details count.
Speaker 1:Well, I, you you've got an acoustic guitar laying on the bed there behind you and I. I wanted to ask you a minute ago but were you guys always gravitating to the acoustic versus the electric guitar? Well, we'll talk about that in just a second. That's. That's interesting and the listeners won't be able to see that, but we'll talk about it it's a wise and born lap steel acoustics.
Speaker 4:I've been trying to trying to get some new chops going here. Okay, wow, awesome. Yeah, we're doing I would you know. We were nobody ever played acoustic in the rock bands in high school, no, but I think our kind of joke was, after we got out of high school we all sold our gear and then we're left with like one acoustic guitar each or something. Sure, but I think the reality was CSN were playing these acoustics and sitting on stools. Yes, james Taylor's, you know Fire and Rain with an acoustic Joni Mitchell, it became the thing. It acoustic Joni Mitchell. It became the thing, it was the thing. And so we all got acoustics. Dewey had one called the Hawk, which I remember I'm not exactly sure who made that.
Speaker 1:Well, when I, when I see guys that gravitate to the acoustic I, I'm inspired by them. You know, huge Dan Fogelberg fan, jim Croce, all the great singer, songwriters out there that are certainly known for the the acoustic guitar much more than the electric guitar.
Speaker 4:So I remember Beatles in the hard bass night, them sitting on the scenes when they're on the train and they're strumming those J-160s. I mean that's the Beatles singing and playing acoustic guitars. So it really wasn't a later 60s thing, it was really going on. You know, dylan, of course, of course it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a later 60s thing was really going on. You know, dylan, of course. Of course it was. Yeah. Well, we talked just a second ago about close vocal harmonies and this is probably a wild question. But why do you feel like your voices pair so well together? Have you guys ever really given that any thought, or is it just the phenomenon? That happens, but I didn't know it is a phenomenon.
Speaker 3:It's like we said. You know, voices are like fingerprints there. No two are exactly alike and no two will sound. Some, some just don't sound right together for some reason. You know ours kind of right away. I remember the first time we sang harmony and jerry would usually work out the parts and you sing this and dan you sing this. Dan was our high harmony singer and it just sounded wow, this is so great when you're hitting those notes and and you you work out the arrangements together and background vocals on this and you're singing lead on that and do these oohs and ahs, lots of oohs and ahs and la, la, la's gotta have those in harmony.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I mean it really, and then you can do that acapella, of course, and uh, and it's a, it's a wonderful sound 100, the blend you know, and then what dewey's alluding to, you can all learn the right notes.
Speaker 4:But that magic thing of the blend I can tell you, not that we needed the beach boys to teach us anymore because we learned so much from them, but I remember bruce kind of telling us dude about when you put out three God forbid four-part harmony. There's not a lot of room for vibrato in there. You can't put a guy in the middle because he's going to start rubbing up against you know the upper One or the others.
Speaker 4:Yes, so he was showing us that. You know, that's part of the Beach Boys signature is like Nova, this very smooth, so he was. He was showing us that you know it's real, that's part of the Beach Boys signature is like Nova, this very smooth stuff. Like that counts.
Speaker 1:And it's interesting that you say that because if you remember Robin Gibb, he had this tremendous vibrato voice Right so well. The vocal pairing is certainly so good that it's launched you guys into the Hall of Fame as a vocal group back in 2006, I believe. Jerry, I wanted to ask you real quick what does such an accolade mean to you as an artist, to be launched into a Hall of Fame category like that?
Speaker 4:Well, it's an honor, first of all, and you know that's put together. I think I remember when we were actually meeting some of the lettermen and you know we were crossing paths and one of them, I think, had something to do with putting that together in Pennsylvania somewhere, I think, and how far out. That's really great because it's focused on, you know, harmonies and vocals and things which is obviously different than the rock hall or the country music. I mean, each one is um, and I'm sure do we all agree. It's an honor. I was just, you know, going through some stuff from a locker do, and I, you know you amass some things. I was cleaning out the locker, I got this lovely plaque that was from the hollywood walk of fame, you know do, the plaque with the, yeah, a little model, and you know that comes up all the time. That's just you know what. What can you say about that other than far out?
Speaker 1:you know you got a store in the hollywood walk of fame, yeah and dewey, I would probably would ask you that same question like what, what do the accolades mean to you?
Speaker 3:well, in the very beginning, you know, you weren't even reaching for that stuff when we first made that first album and those first songs and they were getting radio play, that was great. Wow, we're on the radio. You know, we've made it, you know. And then when the record started selling, and wait a minute, you've got, you've just now won. We won the grammy for the best new artist of 1972. It was beyond our wildest dreams, you know, and uh, and of course, naturally we weren't there for it. We missed receiving the Grammy in person. Dusty Springfield accepted on our behalf, which was great. But, you know, and then one thing after another, then suddenly you've sold. In those days you'd get a gold record. Was it for 500,000?
Speaker 4:It used to be a million dollars worth, which worked out at about 400 at the time. 400 and something, thousand copies, okay. And then when cassettes and everything started creeping in, they said you know what, we ought to just make it a half a million units and that'll be combined cassettes or albums and stuff. So that's what gold was, and platinum, which was like beyond, oh my god, that that was the rarest of metal. Sure, it was a million units, you know. So a platinum album was like almost some of that.
Speaker 3:That'll never happen and so we started getting those. I mean, our albums were going gold and platinum, platinum, double platinum yeah, the greatest hits is with five or something now, but it's just like and and. Then, of of course, you look at these other artists, without going too far into this 40 million, 50 million. But the awards, yeah, they were always very, you know, humbling in a sense to think, wow, did we? Wow, we got this far in our careers and the shows were selling out and it was definitely. We got the stamp of approval, yes, which you know it was a great thing.
Speaker 4:I think now, randy, looking back because we're, you know, obviously 50-some years on this journey it's far easier to look back than to look ahead of women. I'd like to think, and I hope Dewey would agree, that we earned all of that stuff. I just don't ever think that. I don't know how that happened. I mean, we really worked our butts off. Of course it was a lot of work, we had a fantastic time, but I don't want to diminish the. You know the famous Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours. You know we put in our 10,000 hours. We were playing our little do is dick dale and all of these things. It all led led.
Speaker 1:You know she did this story, yeah I don't think, based on you know my intake of music and what I know about america and all of the great songs that you've written over the years, I don't think it was a fluke for any of these accolades just so you know if you and you don't need me to validate for you right but I'm just saying from my seat you don't need me to validate for you, right? But I'm just saying from my seat I don't think it was a fluke.
Speaker 3:Randy, it was moving so fast too. And if you leap forward to right now, our latest release is live from the Hollywood Bowl, 1975. That was one show. Yes, we focused on that thing to make it to get a mobile recording unit there to record that night at the hollywood bowl in 75. But we were moving so such a fast pace with touring and other album projects, writing material for the next album, that when we listened to the tapes shortly after that that concert we went and it sounds crappy, you know, it's kind of scratchy. Oh, I was out of tune. Let's show that for now. And we were off to the next thing. Those tapes remained in a vault somewhere under dust until earlier this year, later, late last year, whenever it was, and they got digitized and cleaned up and we're going. We listened to it went, wow, this is a really great, you know, window into that time, 1975. Yes, and it's the only live recording, formal, professional live recording anyway, with Dan Peake as the original trio, sure, so it's a wonderful time capsule. And what's the?
Speaker 4:end and not the end due. But what are we just this week?
Speaker 3:What's happened? It's been released. No, we're on the Billboard charts. Yeah, we're back on the Bessari.
Speaker 4:We're in the top 10 Billboard the first time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we are. George Martin, of course, was conducting the symphony orchestra behind us for much of that concert. In fact, he was our get this drum roll. Our opening act was Sir George Martin. Now, sir George Martin, I mean he was United Opening for us doing this beautiful series, a symphony conducting of Beatles music and Bach music and James Bond music, all of which he'd been involved in, and he was our producer, of course, at that point. Sure, so it's a wonderful time capsule with George conducting and yeah, it's on the charts this week.
Speaker 1:Isn't it that amazing how you pull something out of the vault from 1975 and it relaunches you right back up to superstardom again. Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 4:It might sound easy, but I'm sure we must give a nod to Jeff Larson, who had been our archivist for years and tries to keep track of this stuff because it literally is in closets and vaults and different labels and things and in the process of digitizing everything. That's how this resurfaced and he went in and some of it was truly an issue. There were buzzes and hums and things. He said, no, it's like we have the technology now we can get that yeah so he fixed it.
Speaker 4:However, it was really a godsend and got it presentable and it's really a great uh, great album.
Speaker 1:Well you know I was still pretty. I don't I don't even want to do the math right now, but I was still fairly young in 75, 78 was a very formidable music year for me. But as I go back and I listen to all the things from the 70s and, by the way, I listened to the Hollywood Bowl release that you guys just put out over the weekend and it just man, it takes me back to a great time in my life. That was just the great music that made me the musician that I am today. And you can't go wrong with the stuff from the mid-70s through the late 70s. I just loved it all. Great era Good stuff. Can you guys walk me through the songwriting process that has made America what it is today? Is there a formula or is it just? Things happen by?
Speaker 4:osmosis, at least for us. I mean, dewey and I have been writing separately and together for half a century and, yes, there's a few things. Most songs have words, right, you can have a hit. That's an instrumental in theory, but you might write down a lyric of a line. Or even Jimmy Webb, a famous composer, taught us very early write down your titles. Just get a list of titles, of course. And then there's a little lick you have and you might want to play that lick to a rhythm. Always work, okay, what you can't skip is the work. Yep, some of them are magic that you just play and it almost happens in the three minutes of the song. That's rare, and when it does happen it's truly one of those great moments. But a lot of them are a couple years in the making.
Speaker 4:A song of dues that needed a bridge. It was said why didn't you do that before? Well, we just never had the bridge, we needed the third verse or something. So it before. Well, we just never had the bridge, or we needed the third verse or something, of course, at least in our case. Now you'll ask certain musicians. They'll say, oh, every day, 8 am, I get up and I get to the piano and I don't, I don't until noon. They, they have a force very structured. You and I are and we're the opposite of that.
Speaker 1:Whatever that is, I've seen yeah, go ahead and share your thought there in many ways.
Speaker 3:Ways it's a simple process. In others, the toughest thing for me has always been finishing a song. I can have like Jer's saying he'd help me out with things when I had a couple of verses and a chorus or something. But I mean, you've got three or four minutes to put down something.
Speaker 3:A song, this thing called a song, and yes, there's no real formula. A song this thing called a song, and yes, there, there's no real formula. If we had, I think any artist successful in whatever levels will say if there was a formula, we'd all be using that formula. Of course, if something happens, where you are, you are writing, you're trying to get some thoughts and some feelings, some some visuals down in a song and uh, and it's. It's. Sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's hard, you know, basically the formula for me is to strum a few, find a few chords. I like we were also turned on back in those days to detuning our guitars and coming up with weird tunings and things like that. I particularly like to do that on a lot of those earlier albums, and even horse with no name is a weird tuning, but something like that can inspire you actually to start a song well, it makes you unique too.
Speaker 1:You know, if you, if you're not doing the standard tuning right that everybody else is doing, you're, you stand out a little bit different.
Speaker 3:It's a little bit different, exactly. But then you've got a verse, chorus, verse, chorus. You know, bridge, chorus, chorus, chorus thing. Those are kind of a formula. It's like an ABC Pieces of that song. There's that formula that can be broken a lot, as Jerry's pointed out in the past. The Simon and Garfunkel song that, jerry, that has no rhymes in it.
Speaker 4:I used to speak at Loyola every semester and I would talk to the music class and I had a thing called rules, no rules, and I'd lay out all the rules, these fundamental building blocks of writing a song. Like Dewey said A, A, B, A, B, C, B, B, B, and what that means A is a verse, B is the chorus, so verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus, chorus, chorus, verse, verse, chorus, third verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus, chorus, chorus. So I would lay all these rules out and then the catch to the class was I would then give shining examples of classic songs that break every rule. Of course I'm trying to show the students that there are these building blocks. You're not going to have much luck if your song's 10 minutes long. You're not going to get on there, Things like that, but then try to open their minds to it Now, having known that, now you know the rules, Now here's how you can break all the rules.
Speaker 4:Now the Simon and Garfunkel song, who he's mentioning America, coincidentally. Let us be lovers and marry our fortune together. It's the most beautiful song and I would play it for the class. I said what is unique about that song? And some guys would say, oh, it's in 6-8 or 3-4, all true things, but nobody would catch that there's not a rhyme in the entire song. Of course the entire song is prose.
Speaker 1:Which is uncommon.
Speaker 4:I'm involved in the storyline. I've got some real estate here in my bag, bought a pack of cigarettes and I've told that story to some really heavyweight songwriters. I was having an event with Diane Warren one time and it freezes them. You can see them stop and go through the song.
Speaker 3:Thinking about it, rusty's doing that right now.
Speaker 4:And it's like yeah, that's great by the time I get to Phoenix is another one. I used to use this example because there's no chorus, it never goes in Phoenix. And I used to use this example because there's no chorus it never goes in Phoenix. Whoa, it's just a verse after verse, after verse after verse.
Speaker 1:Well, it's really. It's really about the foundation, right. What you mentioned about the structure of the song, that's the foundation. I mean you can take it in any direction you want to take it in. That's the beauty of music you, as the artist or the songwriter, paint the canvas the way you want it painted at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:And I've had a lot of wonderful musicians, both local and Hall of Fame musicians, on my show and as far as the songwriting goes in the structure, they're all so different. You know, I had Michael Sweet from the rock band Striper on my show and he said every day at 10 o'clock I sit down and I write striper on my show. And he said every day at 10 o'clock I sit down and I write. That's just what I do and it works for some and it doesn't work for others because nothing, they'll get that writer's block and nothing will come to them and then it's frustrating. So everybody's different at the end of the day. And, dewey, I was going to tell you, you know, when you start a song and don't finish it, they call that add these days, right yeah it's.
Speaker 3:It does take a certain amount of discipline and kind of organizing yourself and I'm going to go back to that bit later and I find stuff, especially now on my laptop billboard I see a word or a phrase or I hear someone on TV show say something. I'm like, well, that's a curious twist of the of of a phrase or a word and I'll write that down. But that's just a list of that kind of stuff. Sure, I remember the time we were making Jerry the album Was it here and now in New York and Ryan Adams Ryan Adams, the writer, singerwriter, came in for a minute and he just took over this session.
Speaker 3:You know, adam Schlesinger, rest in peace, was producing us along with James Ehoff from the Smashing Pumpkins and they'd invited him in to see if he wanted to do something. And he just kind of took over the session and said, okay, who's got a list? Where's your list of names or titles? And I did have that and I had that list and he went okay, we're going to do that song called Glass King. I'd written this phrase, this, whatever it is, glass King. And by the end of the day we had a song called Glass King and it was on the album. Interesting.
Speaker 4:I said that, ryan, he's very prolific, as if you're fans of it. I said I think he wrote five songs in the cab on the way over to the studio.
Speaker 1:Some guys can do it. You know, some guys can. They have that talent. Well, I had a lovely. You know we were speaking of songwriting here. I had a lovely english songwriter on my show a while back that was very instrumental in a big hit for you guys. Uh, do you guys know who I'm referring to?
Speaker 4:Oh well, it's not John Martin, he's, he's gone. Russ Ballard, russ Ballard. Russ wrote you Can Do Magic for us. He produced it, yeah.
Speaker 1:So it was interesting because, you know, I had Russ on my show and I think our interview went on I think it went over two hours.
Speaker 1:He was wonderful to talk to and he's written so many amazing songs over the year and I and I didn't realize until I talked to him and started really looking into what he did that he had written you can do magic. And I said, my gosh, that was like a staple song for me growing up and I had I just had this weird of all the interviews I've done, all of the songs that he had written for that other artists made famous. It's like, wait, you wrote that one too for santana, right, oh, my gosh, and it was just the stuff that shaped me and I'm like I, I got in this. I don't know, it was like this little, uh, the giddy school girl thing like I'm wow, you're the guy, right, you know, but he was a wonderful guy to talk to and he had come to this point in our career, with all the success, and we'd written virtually everything we'd done, and suddenly things weren't clicking and we were writing songs, We'd made albums.
Speaker 3:They weren't just, you know, something was lost. So we certainly reached out for some outside material and our manager, Jim Morey at the time wasn't it Jared? Put us in touch with Russ Ballard. This guy, I didn't know about him either. I knew he'd been John Stanley, his manager, and it's a certain chapter in our career for two albums that Russ Ballard was integral to our work. We did one album that was most of it was Russ Ballard songs Right, and then the border is on that, which was a that russ had.
Speaker 4:That do said that this really could be much more lyrically. You've got. You know you can't I get what you're trying to say, so do rewrote the lyrics, and so that's a co-write between them. Yeah, but in general, move and yeah, the album's called your move. We um, I'll view from the ground as the album that has. You can do magic on it. But we were known and virtually all of our hits were songs that we wrote. But when you listen to you Can Do Magic. He kind of wrote it for us and it's got the do-do-do-do-do, it's got all of those signature things that people are surprised when they hear oh, you didn't write that one.
Speaker 3:He did write it with us in mind. Yeah that's what he said it us in mind. Yeah, that's another thing. It's kind of like, uh, that's what he said, yeah, yeah, it was. It was really well. Was that really was?
Speaker 1:was that the highest uh charting song that russ had written for you guys did that? Did that one have the most success of all the ones that more than the border.
Speaker 4:okay, the the singles that he was involved with was the magic was a top 10 record and which put us back in the charts in the 80s. We had a two or three album drought, yeah. And anything as a duo and all of a sudden, we had a massive hit again.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I think, Cashbox or Billboard had us on the cover. It was Comeback Artist of the Year. So I had a joke on stage that saying we were having comebacks before you were born. Yeah, Because that was really a comeback for us. It really comebacks before you were born, you know, because that was.
Speaker 3:That was really a comeback for us. You know we were, it really was. And of course now we were into the eighties and music had changed, everything had changed. So we were fortunate to have a spotlight on us with another top 10 record in the middle of this huge change and I like to think we might've drifted off into some kind of oblivion, but it brought us back and then we were, we were back to doing, you know, shows or bigger shows and, uh, promoting this big hit top 10 record again.
Speaker 1:Well, it was amazing. When I was talking to him he said you know, I was going through a hard time in my life and I was sitting there and I said I had a dream but it turned to dust what I thought was loved and I'm like jesus, like, just just like that, a hit song was written. Then Santana made it, you know, huge.
Speaker 1:But he also had written a hit song for who has become a good friend of mine from my podcast, graham Bonnet. You know he wrote Since You've Been Gone and Rainbow made a big hit out of that. I think a lot of people covered that over the years, but I think Graham and the Rainbow Boys knocked that one out of that. I think a lot of people covered that over the years, but I think graham, graham and the rainbow boys knocked that one out of the park. I think that was commercially probably the biggest.
Speaker 3:You know, the biggest seller for rain one other, one other song we did by another writer, earlier than that even was we did. We found this we used to listen to every album we could get our hands on, whoever it was, this obscure album by this guy named Willis Allen Ramsey, and there was a song on there that we're all sitting around listening to called Muskrat Candlelight. We thought that's pretty cool. I kind of like that song. So it was almost like just on a whim. We said let's work that one up and see what happens when we record it. Of course it became Muskrat Love.
Speaker 3:Yes, and as Jerry was alluding to, our manager at the time was David Geffen, and Geffen was going wait a minute, you guys are writers yourself. You're singer songwriters. We're promoting you as a singer songwriter, guys. But we were kind of adamant. We thought this is a great song and we want to put it out. We might should have listened to him a little bit because it didn't do as well for us. But we were vindicated when the captain and to deal, we recorded that and had a big number, one record.
Speaker 4:Number one record, so our ears weren't wrong. Do I think our ears were right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, I think that one was probably even overshadowed by level. Keep us together. That was a big hit for them back in the seventies as well, right, I?
Speaker 4:can tell you maybe that, and we also did a john martin's. There's a few covers throughout our career. But probably the most prestigious thing for us was that jimmy webb was writing all the music for the last unicorn, this beautiful animated motion picture, and asked if we would sing. So we ended up being the singers and performing the songs of jimmy webb for the last unicorn okay, although I don't want to say it's an acquired taste, because it's a wonderful project. But the actual song was a number one record in Germany, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. It was like the encore for us in Germany, the theme for the Last.
Speaker 3:Unicorn. The music stands out but the film stands out too. It is kind of a cult following this thing called the Last Unicorn and it was a different kind of animation for the times and everything was pre pre all the you know ai and digital stuff now, but it's a fun. Nice young kids still like that, my grandkids like that film, the last unicorn and and I think we did some good uh singing jimmy and jimmy webb too.
Speaker 1:Jimmy webb yeah jerry, I was gonna ask you do you have a favorite song from the catalog? Is there just one? I know that's kind of like saying I love one of my kids more than I love the other kid, but is there one that really resonates with you as a songwriter over the years?
Speaker 4:I have an answer to that because obviously it's not the first time and sometimes it's what's a favorite of mine that I've written or when. But I would like to throw the net wider and just say if I had a favorite America song, I usually pick Ventura over horse. Dewey wrote Ventura highway, but I just think it was from the second album, which actually sold more than the first album. I just think it has every not that Horse isn't one of those once-in-a-lifetime things and I love everything about that as a single. We're fortunate to debate which of our many hits is, you know, and I could be obscure and pick something from an album, you know, yeah, but I just think Ventura has all the ingredients.
Speaker 4:We had a tour manager for quite a few years and he said, oh, no. I said, man, that's what I call Nothing can hurt me now Music. And I thought, oh, that's a lovely way to put it. I think it was Dewey at his best, beautiful three-part harmonies, signature acoustic guitar things. You know, obviously, jimmy, jimmy jam is a friend of ours. He used it for a Janet Jackson record. That was the number one record for her, called Someone to Call my Lover. It's just really. I'd put that at the top of my list.
Speaker 1:Fair enough. What can you tell the listeners about Jerry Beckley's America book?
Speaker 4:My particular journey, I mean my story about. You know, I started piano when I was four years old, so my journey started with my earliest memories of listening to my mom playing Basically. She leaned towards the Russians, the Romantics, tchaikovsky and that stuff. It's all beautiful, beautiful stuff to grow up on. But it was also in my mind somewhat of the birth or the development of melody. So her other love was show tunes like Rodgers and Hammerstein and stuff and the sound of music. In my mind I kind of mixed all that stuff. These were just wonderful chords, wonderful melodies.
Speaker 4:I haven't got to the lyric part yet, in fact orchestral stuff there is no lyric Right, but I was well on my way. I was in bands by 10 years old. But I was well on my way. I was in bands by 10 years old. So I think in the 50 some years in America I think is fitting. You know I've had the world's best partner and stuff.
Speaker 4:But it's a long, lovely story to answer your question, and I just think we are so fortunate when you look at the million versions of that story that came apart. Or you're talking about the Brothers Gibb and there's just Barry left now, ironically, I had dinner the other night with Brian Wilson, and Brian, you know, is the oldest of the three brothers and you and I are close. We were close with them all, but Brian's the last one. I just think it's a miracle that we're here and we can talk to you about it. Yes, we can talk to you about it. Yes, we can talk to them. People want to know that. As you well know, this stuff is as popular as it ever was and I'd like to say that's a testament to. It was good and still is good.
Speaker 1:Well, you know I've posted on my social media is backstage past radio and my personal sites. You know that I have. I have the boys from America coming up and everybody's just like wow, wow, wow. You know, like you, you still get that like after all of these years and that that's an accolade in and of itself to you guys that there's still popularity there with with the listeners, you know.
Speaker 4:I think it just grows and grows and you know hits count. We got a bunch of hits.
Speaker 1:Well, listen, jerry. Thanks so much for the time. It's been a treat having you and Dewey on. Thank you for the stories. I wish you guys continued success in the years to come and we'll be in touch with you. Thanks so much. Thank you, randy. Nice talking to you yeah likewise.
Speaker 1:I ask the listeners to check out America's website at VenturaHighwaycom and make sure you find tour dates in your areas and get out there and support the band. I ask the listeners to like, share and subscribe to the podcast on Facebook at Backstage Pass Radio Podcast on Instagram at Backstage Pass Radio and on the website at BackstagePassRadiocom. You all remember to take care of yourselves and each other and we'll be right back here on the next episode of Backstage Pass Radio.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for joining us. We hope you enjoyed today's episode of Backstage Pass Radio. Make sure to follow Randy on Facebook and Instagram at Randy Halsey Music and on Twitter at R Halsey Music. Also make sure to like, subscribe and turn on alerts for upcoming podcasts. If you enjoyed the podcast, make sure to share the link with a friend and tell them Backstage Pass Radio is the best show on the web for everything music. We'll see you next time right here on Backstage Pass Radio.
