America - A Fifty-Year-Long Dream

There's nothing more contemporary than dreaming, from the dim light of one's own room, of other worlds, in space and time, blending them together and with one's own memories, trying to reconstruct a personal memory of events that never happened. This is what America did, when they weren't even twenty yet, packed into a car in the English rain, imagining, dreaming of riding for miles and miles under the desert sun, or racing through the moonlit streets of California.

This identity of the uprooted and the misfit, of the nearly dispossessed, translated into a musical product unique of its kind: mocked for its naiveté as much as the target of countless imitation attempts for the innocence of its outlook; scorned at the time for its almost total absence of any political message, yet rewarded with lasting fame for the indelible charm of its songs. Born outside of any scene, America's only fault was being entirely depoliticized even as the Beatles, together or as solo artists, had long since embraced direct engagement - wanting to enter the bubbling cauldron of the singer-songwriter world without having lofty messages or violent stories or dark personal affairs to recount, but simply, in essence, three voices, three guitars and a vague nostalgia for distant lands, and in one case, lands never even known firsthand.

Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell and Dan Peek, sons of American servicemen, in fact met at an enclave high school in Watford, in the United Kingdom, where their parents had settled. Outside lay England, but inside it felt like being in any Midwest high school, a kind of virtual bubble in which to try to recreate a life that had only been tasted, at best, or that had merely been sensed through memories of home. Importantly, a "fictitious" reality also in its being sanitized and removed from all the political upheavals that were in the air in American high schools (or anywhere else, for that matter) at the time.

After finishing high school, Dan really does make it to America, enrolling in an Economics degree. It's '69; just a year later he'll be back in London, where he finds Dewey and Gerry trying to break into the city's art scene. Dewey (who already has a few of his own songs in the works, the prototypes of "Riverside" and "Three Roses") and Dan work together as kitchen hands; Gerry, meanwhile, is trying to become a full-fledged musician.

Against their parents' explicit disapproval, the three become a band, more or less officially – they meet up at one another's houses to play together (nothing more than a couple of acoustic guitars, really), or, when their parents kick them out, holed up in a car, which turns out to be the best place to develop their famous harmonies. Working and living in London brings the first results: through a roundabout route, the three come into contact with Ian Samwell, already a songwriter and guitarist for Cliff Richards back in the '50s, and at the time a Warner employee. He takes enough of an interest in them to recommend them to Jeff Dexter, a London DJ but above all the deus ex machina behind all the most important gigs among the city's up-and-coming acts in those years. Meanwhile, the still-nameless group is finally christened, inspired by a jukebox of "Americana".

Warner only signs America once Ian himself offers to produce the record (one of his very few, carefully chosen production credits). His contribution, however unexpected (and a bit forced), proves essential in defining America's sound: the three of them head into the studio, excited and full of energy, with George Martin-style arrangements in mind, thinking they're about to record a new "Sgt. Pepper", but Samwell stops them right away. America's material can't support a baroque sonic framework, nor can the three of them afford to reproduce it live – America have to keep sounding like three guys and a couple of guitars, holed up in a car in the rain. Beckley would later describe the sound as an electric style played on acoustic guitars.

America is a jubilant ring of rhythms and shimmering metal, driven by a distinctive, airy groove, a kind of prairie soul running through Bunnell's compositions (right from the start, in fact, there's the irresistible, syncopated pulse of "Three Roses"). Bunnell, Beckley and Peek heavily draw on the intimate, organic character of "Teaser And The Firecat", of "After The Gold Rush", but above all of their American alter egos: Crosby, Stills and Nash, who had debuted a few years earlier, in '69, and had already begun their collaboration with Young on the landmark "Deja Vu".

Compared with these giants of American and British songwriting, America come across as the inexperienced, green understudy: aside from flashes of Bunnell's emotional/landscape-driven nonsense (and even a kind of poorly repressed violence or aggression, as on the brooding "Sandman"), the lyrics on America veer into teenage sappiness (the Lennon-esque downbeat piano of "I Need You", the very first song Beckley, the group's playboy, ever wrote – it's hard to imagine Neil Young trying to strike up a dialogue with the Bee Gees), and on the whole they never venture beyond an inoffensive, ecumenical message, firmly in pop-band territory.

Perhaps that's exactly why America are, today, one of the most influential bands on the indie scene (and beyond) – they were among the first to blend British pop tradition with an American style (here the clearest reference point is certainly "Crosby, Stills and Nash", though Beatles-esque inflections creep in often too, in the suspended, almost psychedelic harmonies of "Never Found The Time", to name one example). And for that same reason, they were, in the early '70s (as well as more recently), one of critics' favorite targets, for their noticeably immature tone (at the time, it's worth remembering, the oldest of the three, Peek, was barely twenty).

America is, in fact, a deeply instinctive record: from the muted strumming of "Riverside" onward, you're drawn into a world of musical colour, mostly acoustic, of rare taste, with harmonic and instrumental turns well outside the norms of their so-called "older brothers". In places, the songs' drive is palpable, striking the listener head-on (the sudden shifts of pace in "Here"). At the same time, "America" is also an immediately familiar record, every song on it could be that lost hit your musician relative once played you – it's easy to picture the three of them playing "Clarice" in the living room, and you can feel the pleasure of weaving together strumming and arpeggios just as much as voices. It's one of those records that could make three guys sit down together one afternoon, guitars on their laps.

Despite this, America isn't the massive hit that Samwell and Warner had hoped for. The album is released on the strength of the aching ballad "I Need You" as its lead track. The band builds a following, thanks to Dexter's support, on the London scene, America charts in the Netherlands, but something is still missing. Samwell realizes "I Need You" wasn't the right choice as a lead single, and asks the band to come up with new material.

At this point an old song of Dewey's turns up, titled "Desert Song", which hadn't made it onto the first edition of the album. It went like this:

I’ve been through desert on a horse with no name

Samwell immediately realizes this is the right track, and that, "of course", its real title was "Horse With No Name". That song contains almost everything about America's music, at least about the first phase of it, the one shaped by Bunnell, a kind of cross between Neil Young (and inevitably there'll be no shortage of ready-made criticism about the similarity in tone and approach between the two – as if that were some kind of fault) and Huxley's Savage. In "Horse With No Name" the world suddenly becomes idealized and poetic, an imaginary, immaterial place, even though it's described in almost pedantic terms ("The heat was hot and the ground was dry").

America is thus relaunched on the back of this "Horse With No Name": while the three are working on their next record, the song climbs the charts in the Netherlands and the UK, culminating in the stunning result of March 25, 1972 – "Horse With No Name" hits number one on the Billboard singles chart in the United States, closely followed by America (cheekily reissued with the new single on side A) on the albums chart. It's a bolt from the blue, not just for the band but for the entire music industry. America are forced to halt work on the new album and head back to their home country, where everyone is asking just who these three guys are.

Even though, on Dexter and Samwell's decision, their first tour is limited to small clubs and out-of-town venues, America burst onto the pages of all the major magazines, where the prevailing mood is a thinly veiled surprise at the band's success mixed with accusations of plagiarism and of watering down CSN&Y.

The success is overwhelming, pushing the second single, once again "I Need You", all the way to the Billboard Top 10.

The second album, Homecoming, was recorded in California, fittingly enough. On this record America bring in a full band (featuring two absolutely top-tier musicians, Hal Blaine and Joe Osborn) and round out their sound, with a few piano-only intros (on the smooth, soulful "To Each His Own" and the breezy, still Beatles-esque pop of "Only In Your Heart") and a handful of more overtly electric tracks (the gospel-rock of "Cornwall Blank").

Released in November 1972, the album opens with what is perhaps the most stirring song of America's career, "Ventura Highway", second only to "Horse With No Name" in popularity among fans, and a fortunate choice as the lead single. Introduced by a fluttering, unmistakable riff, a sudden gust of freedom, the song uses Bunnell's dreamy, fairy-tale imagery (alligators and lizards in the air) to paint the experience of driving down the highway in the dead of night, caught between passing scenery and inward musing.

After the flop of the second single (the unremarkable "Don't Cross The River", with its unresolved, almost anxious chorus) and, even more so, of the third single ("Only In Your Heart"), critics could barely contain themselves, declaring the band's premature end. Their sound, they said, had grown flabby, the songs dull. It's true that on Homecoming, as tends to happen when big-name session musicians are brought in, the naive urgency of the debut is gone - some might even say America are angling for comparisons with bigger bands and artists, as in the long acoustic jam of "Moon Song" and the choral finale of "Saturn Nights".

But while the arrangements and performances are reaching (often successfully, it must be said) for a maturity still not fully earned, the songwriting on Homecoming is often more complete and inspired, scattered throughout with goosebump-inducing melodic flashes, as in the brief "Till The Sun Comes Up Again". Although decidedly more "American" than America, it still manages to sum up the styles and moods evoked by the band's music, in a way that's more compact and coherent than its predecessor.

Despite winning the 1972 Grammy for Best New Artist, beating out the Eagles, America confirmed with the following Hattrick (continuing the tradition of titles starting with H) a clear drop both in audience pull (the first single, the syrupy and hardly thrilling "Muskrat Love") and in inspiration, on their third album in three years.

Despite the stated goal of "completing a hat-trick", the album saw the band vanish from the European charts and barely register on the US charts. Hattrick is a toothless, largely unmoving record, carrying little beyond a general air of idle flirtation. Much of it rests on a general thickening of the arrangements, with strings and increasingly intrusive electric riffs (see the clunky "Green Monkey") - and even, in the (exhausting) title track, a bit of tap dancing, notable above all for the collaboration with Carl Wilson.

On this third album, America found themselves bogged down and losing their audience - and, taking quite a gamble, they chose not to follow up the release of Hattrick with a tour. Aware that they needed to raise their game to survive in the record business, they decided at the same time to chase a long-held dream. And so one day they arranged a meeting with George Martin, taking advantage of his being in California for an Oscar nomination.

American cockroaches

When Martin meets America, he is thinking of retiring. He agrees to produce their album on one condition: that it be done in London, at his own studios. What surprises the trio isn't just his talent as a musician, but his production style, far more instinctive than theirs, which had by then gotten lost in excessive fussiness. After two or three takes he would stop the recording: "That's the feeling you're after for this song." If a fill got forgotten along the way, it was simply added later.

In three weeks, Holiday was born - naturally the band's most pop and most Beatles-esque record, on which, by the band's own admission, Martin's arrangements carry as much weight as the songs themselves. The strings, horns and piano breaks bring out and enliven America's songwriting (back in focus after the band's break), lightening the tone of heavier pieces like "Another Try" while lending flashes of epic romanticism to more intimate songs (while at the same time stripping away any trace of the cloying sentimentality that often marred America at their worst, epitomized here by "You") such as "Glad To See You", and leading the band through playful duets like "Mad Dog", or disenchanted little vignettes of la dolce vita on "Hollywood".

The end result is exactly what was hoped for: Holiday manages to be both rich and light at the same time, and is still today, if not the band's most representative record, probably their most successful one in every sense of the word for this Anglo-American outfit. It keeps the band's dual imprint of British sixties and American seventies, leaving the band's acoustic soul essentially untouched, especially on the less Beatles-esque tracks, such as the lead single "Tin Man" and "Baby It's Up To You" - venturing into youthful, bucolic crooning only on "Old Man Took".

The tracks rarely run past the three-minute mark, and the band's attempt to play with different vocal registers also pays off, whether through shifts in key ("In The Country") or by toying with a "mono" sound ("What Does It Matter").

In the summer of 1974, radio stations were playing the chorus of "Tin Man", which may contain the finest lyric America ever wrote: "Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn't, didn't already have". Thanks in part to Martin's name attached to it, the song became a radio favorite, reaching number 4 on the Billboard chart - the band's best result since "Horse With No Name" hit No. 1.

The second single, Peek's "Lonely People", a vaguely Harrison-esque hymn of hope, also struck a chord with audiences, climbing to number 5 - and on the strength of these singles (perhaps the least recognizably Martin-arranged tracks, even if they wouldn't be the same without certain piano breaks...) Holiday itself reached number three and stayed on the charts for more than a year.

The collaboration between George Martin and America, spurred on by this success, is now in full swing, and work on the next album begins almost immediately, this time recorded in the band's own "home turf" of Sausalito, across the Golden Gate from San Francisco. Hearts comes close to matching the success of its predecessor, even if it's a notch below in terms of quality.

It's launched, however, by two very strong singles: the West Coast-tinged country-pop of "Sister Golden Hair", pure America through and through, and the big ballad and instant classic "Daisy Jane", with an irresistible opening line (“Flying me back to Memphis/ Gotta find my Daisy Jane/ But the summer’s gone and I hope she’s/ Feeling the same”) and a killer refrain: "Does she really love me?/ I think she does".

Less solid than its predecessor (some tracks are genuinely weak, especially in the run that follows opener "Daisy Jane" – "Half A Man", "Midnight" and "Bell Tree"), Hearts is above all a record of little gems, like the harmonic flourishes of closer "Seasons" or the instrumental build-up of "The Story Of A Teenager" – and, if you like, the "post-conciliar" melody of "Tomorrow".

This rekindled fortune for America is sealed by the early release of the band's first greatest-hits collection, titled, as tradition dictates, History, which comes out in October 1975 and by December has already gone gold – the band's sixth gold record. It would stay on the charts until 1977.

George Martin and America would work together on two more albums, Hideaway and Harbor. The two records – the first recorded at Caribou Ranch, where Elton John had also gone to make his "Caribou", the second in Hawaii – mark the band's decline once again, this time for good: they would never again get a single into the Top 10, and Harbor would be the first record since Hat Trick not to go gold.

Hideaway in particular sees the return of that saccharine, typically cheesy streak found in America's worst material, with B-grade crooning moments like "Who Loves You", or singalongs verging on the mawkish like "Can't You See" – though also sturdier, classic-rock-leaning tracks like "Don't Let It Get You Down".

The first single, Dan's "Today's The Day", is no exception in showing off the trio's weaker side – the only thing that stands out is a bland sense of modesty, in a track that not even Martin manages to elevate much, in a production that's more predictable than usual (save for the forgettable reggae arrangement of "Lovely Night"). Not even the most classic Bunnell-penned track, "Amber Cascades" (the best thing on the record, despite the repetitiveness of the songwriting), can turn around the album's commercial fortunes, with Hideaway nonetheless reaching a respectable eleventh place.

The real sign that the band had lost a large part of its audience comes with the following album, Harbor, a record that at least conveys the trio's enjoyment during the recording sessions, alongside a sound updated to reflect the now-unavoidable trends of the moment, with bass-and-saxophone-driven tracks like "Slow Down". In this "Hawaiian" spirit, awkward confessions like "These Brown Eyes" take on a certain emotional resonance, even if, once again, there's little to praise on the songwriting front. The tracks are lifeless, so lifeless that they could be arranged any which way, and Martin's touches have little effect – simplicity quickly gives way to a childish plainness.

A New Beginning

1976 is nonetheless a lucky year for America, whose songs are perfectly suited to a tour celebrating the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence. It's the following year that marks the end of an era for the band, around which rumors swirl, especially regarding their now-expired contract with Warner – but it's the announcement of Dan Peek's departure from the band that shakes up the band's still-numerous fans.

Dan's story begins with a prayer to God, made back before America even existed, in which he asked to become a rock singer in order to spread the Word: "Somehow I failed to honor my end of the bargain with God. I guess I was afraid of losing my popularity if I spoke on the Lord's behalf. Instead I set off down the road of Sin. By 1977 America had won more than 20 gold and platinum records worldwide. We played to crowds of 100,000 in stadiums and 20,000 in concert halls. We traveled the globe on a private jet. Why was I so unhappy? One night, completely out of my mind, I slipped and fell off a cliff in front of my house on the beach in California. Or did I jump? While I was in the hospital recovering, I started looking back on my life. Where had I gone wrong? I was a successful person by any worldly standard, but I was desperately sad. I knew my only hope was Jesus."

America doesn't end there (nor does the friendship between the three of them): Beckley and Bunnell drop Peek's songs from the concert setlists and carry on as a duo. The pair's first release would be, curiously and boldly, a live album, on which the absence of the third voice is felt mercilessly, even though Martin would lend his hand with a brand-new orchestral arrangement for "A Horse With No Name". Live is the recording of the concert at the Los Angeles Greek Theater on July 24, 1977, with Elmer Bernstein conducting the orchestra. But the whole thing sounds like the disjointed work of two different singer-songwriters, and the project feels almost like a device to close out the contract with Warner and start over from scratch.

While Dan embarks on a modestly successful career in Christian music, Gerry and Dewey land a deal with Capitol, whose first release is the revamping exercise that is Silent Letter. With a fuller sound and more assertive performances, America attempt to stake out solid ground in a contented, adult soft-rock.

Still, you can sense the energy of a new beginning, with Bunnell's trademark muted guitar becoming an inevitable anchor for following the rhythms emerging at the time ("And Forever"), while Beckley's songs take on a fuller shape ("No Fortune"). Bursts of sax and electric guitar push America into a new phase of pop music, but the songs, however much you can sense a different approach to songwriting, are still a long way from the evocative simplicity of the band's biggest hits.

And so Silent Letter too (nicknamed "Silent Record" by the pair) slips off the charts without even managing to crack the American Top 100.

Meanwhile Dan, gradually embraced by the Christian country scene, would release a few more records in the '80s, before retiring to private life starting in the '90s.

The America story continues in 1980 with Alibi, for which Beckley and Bunnell turn to producers Matthew McCauley and Fred Mollin, as well as a host of new West Coast-bred musicians, including Timothy B. Schmit (formerly of Eagles), Leland Sklar and Steve Lukather. The result is a more overtly rock-leaning sound, but what stands out is the poignant melody of “Survival”, an elegant country-pop ballad that will become a huge hit especially in Italy, helped along by an appearance at the Sanremo Festival.

For the rest, there's plenty to enjoy in the country-rock languor of “Might Be Your Love” and the distinctly Eagles-like “Catch That Train”, Gerry Beckley's usual ethereal voice on “Coastline”, and the rock energy of “Valentine” (among the most adrenaline-charged numbers of their entire career).

However, the album — saddled with a hideous cover showing the photo of a severed doll's head against a desert backdrop — will prove to be something of a flop, failing to climb higher than No. 142 on the US charts.

More fortunate, from a commercial standpoint, is the follow-up View From The Ground (1982), for which America mobilize a new squad of star guests: Carl Wilson (Beach Boys), Jeff Porcaro (Toto), Christopher Cross and Dean Parks. But the decisive hand is that of guitarist Russ Ballard (formerly of Argent), who produces and plays most of the instruments on the catchy “You Can Do Magic”, whose simple, sticky chorus catches on with the charts, reaching No. 8 on the Billboard singles chart and giving the band their biggest success in seven years. “You Can Do Magic” is the America sound updated for the synthetic '80s: needless to say, all this will spark outraged reactions among longtime fans.

Overall, the album confirms itself as the product of a skillful yet, by now, predictable craft, alternating catchy folk songs (“You Girl”, “Love On The Vine”), by-the-numbers ballads (“Right Before Your Eyes”, a tribute to Rudolph Valentino) and flashes of the rock band they once were (the gritty “Even The Score”). Standing a bit outside the usual template, however, is the uptempo “Never Be Lonely”, which besides the usual, precious vocal harmonies, showcases a jangly, chiming guitar.

With their hit-making machine back on track, America park themselves at No. 41 on the album charts, in a decade that by now plays a very different kind of music.

The success of View From The Ground earns Ballard the confirmation in the producer's chair for the entire follow-up, Your Move. The result, however, is essentially the sidelining of Beckley and Bunnell from the songwriting process. “When we got to London,” Beckley recalls, “we realized that most of the songs were actually his, so we basically got cut out of the album. Even on the songs we wrote, it's really him playing everything.” What really dissatisfied the band, though, were mainly the lyrics, such as those of “The Border”, in which the British Ballard had stumbled into a series of clichés and inaccuracies about the epic of the Frontier, so Beckley took it upon himself to rewrite the entire lyric from scratch.

What's completely lost, however, is the musical coherence of the project: anonymous ballads like “She's A Runaway”, “Tonight Is For Dreamers”, “Honey” and “Don't Let Me Be Lonely” border on the forgettable, “Your Move” attempts to replicate the magic of “You Can Do Magic” with embarrassing results, and this time not even the upbeat jolt of “My Kinda Woman” is enough to rescue the fortunes of a flat, muddled album.

Meanwhile, America also turn their hand to writing a few film scores, such as the one for The Last Unicorn, which will achieve a certain popularity especially in Germany.

For their twelfth studio album, Perspective (1984), America decide to turn the page once again: Ballard is pushed out, but, surprisingly, this doesn't mean a return to their old sound — rather, an even stronger emphasis on electronic elements, with heavy doses of synthesizers and drum machines. As many as seven producers take turns in the control room (among them Richie Zito, Matthew McCauley and Richard James Burgess), for a final result that slavishly mimics the electronic pop productions of the era, completely distorting the band's sound. It's also confirmation of the group's creative crisis, forced to outsource the presumed hit to other songwriters (the electro-pop of “Special Girl”, a damp squib that will also miss the charts entirely), while the next single, “(Can't Fall Asleep To A) Lullaby”, co-written by Bunnell with Steve Perry of Journey, Robert Haimer and Bill Mumy, will get bogged down in the murkiest easy listening.

Perspective will go no higher than a modest No. 185 on the charts and will seal the definitive decline of the American band, now a world away from the state of grace they reached in the '70s.

Thus Beckley and Bunnell close out their recording career with Capitol with the live album In Concert (1985), recorded at the Arlington Theater in Santa Barbara, California. A farewell that couldn't have been more melancholy: it will also be the first America record to completely fail to make the charts.

Nonetheless, Beckley and Bunnell spend much of the second half of the Eighties on the road performing live.

Just when they were already being written off, dusted off only by the odd fan through CD reissues of their classics, even reduced to appearing at Sanremo to present the English version (“Last Two to Dance”) of a song by Sandro Giacobbe (“Io vorrei”), America attempt a difficult comeback, helped also by the support of Chip Davis of American Gramaphone Records, who signs them for a new studio album.

America's first album in ten years, Hourglass (1994) brings the Beckley-Bunnell duo back into the producer's chair, aided by the skilled hands of Hank Linderman and Steve Levine, showing, if nothing else, a broader range of styles and arrangements that earned them renewed critical interest. However, the delicate melodies of "Young Moon" and "Hope" aren't enough to redeem an otherwise dull, uninspired record, which even features a new (?), pointless "You Can Do Magic", somewhere between a rip-off and a cover.

The album is also the first since Dan Peek's departure to revive the tradition of titles starting with H, a run that had continued unbroken from Homecoming to Harbor, and which would carry on into the band's subsequent work as well.

Beckley, meanwhile, launches a solo career with "Van Go Gan", experimenting with new styles and sounds.

Also attempting to revive America's fortunes is a new live release from King Biscuit Flower Hour Records, In Concert, which digs up a performance from 1982. It will be the occasion for a new deal with Oxygen Records, a King Biscuit subsidiary, leading to the release of Human Nature (1998); not even the decent reception of the single "From A Moving Train", a solid slice of acoustic pop, will be enough to spare it another commercial flop. So Oxygen too cuts ties with America, who once again find themselves without a label.

America today

The new millennium opens with a celebratory triple box set, Highway: 30 Years Of America, featuring 64 remastered tracks. A year later comes The Complete Greatest Hits, which collects 17 singles that charted on Billboard, plus two unreleased tracks ("World Of Light" and "Paradise"), which however add nothing significant to their body of work. This latest anthology, though, will have the merit of putting America back on the Billboard chart (no. 152) for the first time since way back in 1984.

America's current reality, however, consists of predictable Christmas albums (Holiday Harmony, 2002, complete with an ode to "Ventura Highway" renamed "Christmas In California") and forgettable live albums, such as the acoustic The Grand Cayman Concert.

Meanwhile Beckley, after rehashing the tracks from "Van Go Gan" in remixed form on "Go Man Go" (2000), keeps racking up solo flops with the subsequent "Horizontal Fall" (2006) and "Unfortunate Casino" (2011).

America's return to the scene comes about in an unusual way, following a long exchange of ideas and songs between Beckley and Adam Schlesinger of the indie-rock band Fountains of Wayne. The songs born from their correspondence catch the attention of Burgundy Records (a SonyBmg subsidiary), landing the band a new deal alongside Schlesinger himself and his associate James Iha, former Smashing Pumpkins member, at the console. The result is America's first major-label album since Perspective (1984), titled Here & Now (2007). The sessions, held at Stratosphere Sound in New York, feature several notable guests, including Ryan Adams, Ben Kweller, Stephen Bishop, Rusty Young, as well as members of Nada Surf and My Morning Jacket.

The album is also paired with a second disc featuring live performances of tracks from History: America's Greatest Hits, recorded at Xm studio.

It's a clear commercial move aimed at holding together Schlesinger & co.'s indie audience and America's seventies nostalgics. A goal achieved, sales-wise, reaching no. 52 on the Billboard chart. Looking closer, though, the album is nothing more than yet another rehash of the repertoire of a band that has been out of ideas for at least thirty years. And yet the opener, the warm, semi-acoustic ballad "Chasing The Rainbow", is promising: a classic America number, with a radiant melody and vocal harmonies to match; likewise, the joyful exoticism of the following "Indian Summer" doesn't feel out of place.

Soon enough, though, the album drops in quality, alternating soporific ballads ("One Chance", "Always Love", "This Time", "Love & Leaving") with tired pop-rock exercises in style ("Look At Me Now", "Work To Do"), finding a bit of spark only in the psych-pop sketch of "Ride On" and in the blues-rock of the bonus track "Glass King", helped along by Ryan Adams's contribution on bass.

For all its limitations, Here & Now still shows a band eager to reclaim a scene that too many ungrateful (and insubstantial) imitators have stolen from them. Pity that the follow-up, Back Pages (2011), recorded in Nashville, is nothing more than a collection of bland covers of various artists (from Bob Dylan to Joni Mitchell, from Adam Schlesinger to the Gin Blossoms).

Casting a shadow over its release was the news of the sudden death of Dan Peek, from complications of pericarditis, on July 24, 2011. The sixty-year-old America founder, who had converted to Christianity, had released a series of successful contemporary Christian music albums. His autobiography "An American Band" remains the most valuable record of America's golden years. Only Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley would be on hand to have their mark set in the Hollywood Walk Of Fame in February 2012.

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