HOURGLASS RELEASE BIO: HOURGLASS (1994) reflects future for talented AMERICA duo
The singing-songwriting team of Gerry BECKLEY and Dewey BUNNELL is having the time of its life.
And AMERICA may never be the same.
HOURGLASS, the 18th album by the Grammy-winning group AMERICA, marks the first time in nearly a decade that AMERICA's founders, BECKLEY and BUNNELL, have returned to a recording studio.
Celebrating the passage of time in an illustrious career that includes a long string of chart hits and top-sellings albums, AMERICA's HOURGLASS is a musical journey that winds from the past and present of BECKLEY and BUNNELL's artistic output to the inspired new songs that reflect the future of this talented duo.
With a little help from legendary friends like Carl WILSON of the BEACH BOYS, HOURGLASS highlights the seamless blend of vocal harmonies and brilliant songwriting skills that have kept AMERICA international stars for a period spanning three decades. HOURGLASS, which also symbolizes the distinctive shape of a guitar, includes 10 new songs, 2 of which were written during AMERICA's heyday, and 2 new recordings of previously-released material; it's the first album by AMERICA to be released under the American Gramaphone label.
BECKLEY and BUNNELL, who began performing together as teenagers in 1968, have witnessed a complete revolution in Pop music since their own startlingly succesful professional debut in 1970 when the recording of Dewey BUNNELL song A Horse With No Name catapulted 3 young sons of US military officers stationed in England, BUNNELL, BECKLEY, and Dan PEEK, onto international record charts.
2 years later, the 3 young men watched that year's televised Grammy Awards ceremony from a hotel room in New Orleans after a concert performance. They roared when they were announced as Best New Artists.
"It really wasn't considered hip, in those days, to go to the Grammys," recalled BUNNELL. "And we were on tour anyway. Dusty SPRINGFIELD, who we had never met before came out to accept the awards for us, saying 'I'm sure the boys are very honored.' And we were."
By the time the trio who created AMERICA were in their mid-twenties, they had written and recorded enduring chart-dominating hits like Ventura Highway, Sister Golden Hair, I Need You, and Tin Man.
As music culture and popular tastes changed, so did AMERICA. Dan PEEK left the band in 1977 to pursue religious interests (later establishing a succesful career as a Gospel recording artist). AMERICA had a huge hit with the lyrical You Can Do Magic in 1982, in a music scene crowded with more distinctive Pop styles at any time in the history of recorded music.
Country Music was crossing over to Pop charts, Disco was waning, but hanging on, and the first glimmers of New Wave, New Age, Punk and Rap began making noise on the Pop charts.
AMERICA successfully fought any 'trendy' change in their own unique Rock style.
"I remember one recording session in the 1970s where our producer suggested 'Why don't we put a Disco beat here?' But that wasn't what AMERICA was all about," said BUNNELL. "Our core group of fans just weren't going to buy us going Country or Disco."
"I feel it's healthy for the music industry to have so many different elements," said BECKLEY, "but it troubles me when something literally floods the industry as, say, Disco did in the late '70s, coming on so strong. It was amazing how many rock groups recorded Disco songs."
"That was proposed to us," recalled BECKLEY, "so was Country. But we never even confronted the possibility. Who would we be kidding?"
Dewey BUNNELL laughs when he thinks how everything comes back around: his teenaged daughter Lauren recently went shopping for bellbottom jeans and a black light, last in vogue before AMERICA's first hit.
Today BUNNELL and BECKLEY spend their non-performing hours quietly living with their families in California. Dewey BUNNELL, English-born wife Vivien and their 2 children, Dylan and Lauren, live outside San Francisco in San Anselmo; Gerry BECKLEY, the father of 14-year-old son Matthew, lives in the San Fernando valley with wife Kathy and their 2-year-old son Joe.
BECKLEY often takes his older son along on concert tours; when AMERICA recently toured with the BEACH BOYS, Matthew would grab his guitar and join his father, BUNNELL and the BEACH BOYS for the "concert's big finale," BECKLEY said.
As fathers of teenagers and longtime veterans of the music industry, BECKLEY and BUNNELL have seen a generation of changes in their profession, but continue to stay focused on the kind of sound that made AMERICA great: "We stay very true to form," said BECKLEY. "AMERICA's music has always been acoustic, lyrical, harmonious and accessible. Nothing way to left, or way to the right."
One change obvious to longstanding AMERICA fans is visual: After sporting a full beard for over 20 years, Dewey BUNNELL shaved it off in 1990.
"I always thought I'd only shave after I retired," BUNNELL said, rubbing a clean-shaven chin. "But I got tired of waiting. It's a whole new part of my day now."
HOURGLASS represents somthing of a creative milestone for BECKLEY and BUNNELL. Although the 2 have been collaborators onstage for over two decades, they've typically written songs individually. For HOURGLASS, the artists "made a concerted effort to collaborate as songwriters," said BUNNELL. "For too long its been his songs and my songs."
Two of their songwriting collaborations on the new album are Young Moon and Whole Wide World. Another musical collaborator on HOURGLASS is actor Bill MUMY (the former Lost In Space child star is currently a cast member of the science fiction TV series Babylon Five), who co-wrote Sleeper Train with BUNNELL.
BUNNELL and BECKLEY anjoy the collaboration process. When Gerry BECKLEY isn't working on an AMERICA project, he might be found doing studio voice work with longtime friends Timothy B. SCHMIT, formerly of the EAGLES, and recording artist Andrew ('Thank You For Being A Friend') GOLD.
That trio has done a variety of unique sessions, including providing the singing voices for a '60s doo-wop trio in the John WATERS film Cry Baby and the voices of The Chipmunks (BECKLEY was 'Theodore') on several of that 'group's' albums.
"We do it mostly for fun," said BECKLEY. "But if it's a friend's project, we're there."
BECKLEY and BUNNELL are involved, offstage, in raising awareness for a number of political and health causes, including voter registration and pediatric AIDS. It was at a benefit for a different charity where Gerry BECKLEY got the inspiration for his new song Mirror To Mirror.
"It was a charity ski rally," BECKLEY recalled. "And I saw a couple talking to each other on the slope dressed in full ski gear, including mirrored goggles. I suddenly realized, as they were jockeying for a better glimpse of themselves in the reflection of their partner's glasses, that they weren't communicating with each other at all. It was a good analogy for some relationships."
The passage of time has also led to some humorous moments for AMERICA. Dewey BUNNELL laughs loudly recalling a 'Saturday Night Live' skit from the 1970s where Bill MURRAY, playing an off-key lounge singer, warbled Horse With No Name at a motel lounge where members of THE GRATEFUL DEAD sat, amused, at the bar.
A similar scene was filmed for a Mel GIBSON film, Air America, with 2 tiny Laotian singers, in tuxedos, mangling their own version of Horse With No Name.
"It's mostly flattering when another performer covers your material," said BUNNELL, noting that both Andy WILLIAMS and Johnny MATHIS have recorded I Need You. So had recently departed friend, singer Harry NILSSON.
And as for the Bill MURRAY version of Horse With No Name?
"No one," BUNNELL said, "laughed harder than I did. And I wrote the song."
© American Gramaphone - 1994
