March 5, 2021 —– Chart #81
Hello Musical Friends,
Well it’s Friday and we are going to 1975 today and a band with an interesting story. Today’s Chart of the Day is Sister Golden Hair by America. America is an American rock band that was formed in London in 1970 by Dewey Bunnell, Dan Peek and Gerry Beckley. The trio met as sons of US Air Force personnel stationed in London, where they began performing live. Achieving significant popularity in the 1970s, the trio was famous for its close vocal harmonies and light acoustic folk rock sound. The band released a string of hit albums and singles, many of which found airplay on pop/soft rock stations.
The band came together shortly after the members’ graduation from high school, and a record deal with Warner Bros. Records followed. Its debut 1971 album, America, included the transatlantic hits “A Horse with No Name” and “I Need You”; Homecoming (1972) included the single “Ventura Highway”; and Hat Trick (1973), a modest success on the charts that fared poorly in sales, included one minor charting song “Muskrat Love”. 1974’s Holiday featured the hits “Tin Man” and “Lonely People”; and 1975’s Hearts generated the number one single “Sister Golden Hair” alongside “Daisy Jane”. History: America’s Greatest Hits, a compilation of hit singles, was released the same year and was certified multiplatinum in the United States and Australia. Peek left the group in 1977 and their commercial fortunes declined, despite a return to the top 10 in 1982 with the single “You Can Do Magic”. The band’s final Top 40 hit was “The Border”, which reached no. 33 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1983.
The group continues to record material and tour with regularity. Its 2007 album Here & Now was a collaboration with a new generation of musicians who credited the band as an influence. America won a Grammy Award for Best New Artist and were nominated for Best Pop Vocal Group at the 15th Annual Grammy Awards in 1973. The group was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2006 and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012.
“Sister Golden Hair” was their second single to reach number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, remaining in the top position for one week. Beckley says “There was no actual Sister Gold Hair.” The lyrics were largely inspired by the works of Jackson Browne. Beckley commented, “[Jackson Browne] has a knack, an ability to put words to music, that is much more like the L.A. approach to just genuine observation as opposed to simplifying it down to its bare essentials… I find Jackson can depress me a little bit, but only through his honesty; and it was that style of his which led to a song of mine, ‘Sister Golden Hair’, which is probably the more L.A. of my lyrics.” Beckley adds that “Sister Golden Hair” “was one of the first times I used ‘ain’t’ in a song, but I wasn’t making an effort to. I was just putting myself in that frame of mind and I got those kind of lyrics out of it.“
While their fathers were stationed at the United States Air Force base at RAF South Ruislip near London in the mid-1960s, Beckley, Bunnell and Peek attended London Central High School at Bushey Hall, where they met while playing in two different bands. Peek left for the United States for a failed attempt at college during 1969. Soon after his return to the UK the following year, the three began making music together. Starting out with borrowed acoustic guitars, they developed a style that incorporated three-part vocal harmony with the style of contemporary folk-rock acts such as Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Eventually, the trio dubbed itself America, inspired by the Americana jukebox in their local mess hall and chose it because they did not want anyone to think they were British musicians trying to sound American. They played their first gigs in the London area, including some highlights at the Roundhouse in London’s Chalk Farm district. They were eventually taken on by producer Ian Samwell, best known for writing Cliff Richard’s 1958 breakthrough hit “Move It”, and his partner Jeff Dexter, and through their efforts, they were eventually contracted to Kinney Records (UK) in March 1971 by Ian Ralfini and assigned to the UK Warner Bros. label.
The debut album America was released in late December 1971 to only moderate success, although it sold well in the Netherlands, where Dexter had taken them as a training ground to practice their craft. Samwell and Dexter subsequently brought the trio to Morgan Studios to record several additional songs. One of them was a Bunnell composition called “Desert Song”, which Dexter previously demonstrated during studio rehearsals in Puddletown, Dorset, at the home of Arthur Brown. The song had its public debut at the Harrogate Festival, four days later, to great audience response. After several performances and a TV show, it was retitled “A Horse with No Name”. The song became a major worldwide hit in early 1972. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA in March 1972. America’s debut album was released in the U.S. that same month with the hit song added and quickly went platinum. The album resulted in a second major chart success with Beckley’s “I Need You”, which peaked at number 9 on the US charts.
After their initial success, the trio played a series of North American club and college dates in early 1972 and decided to dismiss Samwell and Dexter and relocate to Los Angeles, California, signing with the David Geffen/Elliot Roberts stable at Lookout Management. By 1973, the band had left Lookout to go with John Hartmann and Harlan Goodman after the latter two had broken away from Geffen/Roberts to set up their own management firm.
To date over 2 dozen albums and over 40 years of performing, America is truly an enduring musical group with a great history of songs that we all remember.
Playing it live on Midnight Special: https://youtu.be/LzUQZw3wfro
Keep rockin’ my friends,
Stan