America - America
- FaceOff - עימות חזיתי
- 6 hours ago
- 3 min read
Written By: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 26.12.1971
“Just don’t buy me a rose wrapped in parchment, just don’t bring me a rose, because then I will tell the truth, the one who brings me a rose is the wrong man.”
Yael Levi sang it, Tirza Atar wrote it, and Nurit Galron composed it, although, when it comes to the melody, it can be said with complete honesty that it belongs no less to Dewey Bunnell, one third of the members of America, who released their self-titled debut album on December 26, 1971.
“America” was actually formed in London, when the band’s three members, Dewey Bunnell, Dan Peek, and Gerry Beckley, all sons of U.S. Air Force personnel—met at an American Air Force base in London.
Bunnell was born in Harrogate, Yorkshire, England, to an American father and a British mother, and as a young musician he was inspired by "The Beatles" and "The Beach Boys". Gerry Beckley was born in Fort Worth, Texas, also to an American father and an English mother. He began playing piano at the age of three, and a few years later learned to play guitar. As a child, he played in a band called “The Vanguards,” which performed surf music, and after spending a summer in England he was influenced by bands of the British Invasion. Daniel Peek was born in Panama City, Florida, also the son of an Air Force serviceman, and from 1963 onward studied at a school in London.
Toward the end of the 1960s, the three met with the intention of making music together. Two years earlier, “Sgt. Pepper’s” by "The Beatles" had been released, inspiring countless young musicians. Peek, Bunnell, and Beckley likewise envisioned a “Beatles-like” creative path, but their combined vocal harmonies ultimately steered them more toward the sound of "The Beach Boys" and "Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young".
“America” was the name they chose for themselves, inspired by the jukebox in the local cafeteria, which bore the label “Americana.” Almost as a declaration: we are not British musicians trying to sound American - we are the real thing.
After performing as an acoustic-guitar trio around London, they caught the attention of "Warner Bros. Records" and entered the studio with producer Ian Samwell, who had previously worked with Cliff Richard, John Mayall, and "Small Faces", along with his right-hand man, Jeff Dexter.
Samwell and Dexter heard America’s acoustic guitars and understood that their direction was not the Beatles, but rather vocal harmonies and folk rock. Recording for the debut album, simply titled “America” after the band itself, began in March 1971 at "Trident Studios", which at the time was one of the few studios equipped with an eight-track tape machine.
When the album was first released, it achieved only moderate success, and Ian Samwell and Jeff Dexter brought the trio back into the studio to record additional songs. Among them was a piece initially called “Desert Song,” written by Dewey Bunnell after he encountered paintings in the home of musician Arthur Brown, best known for “Fire.” One painting conveyed the feeling of a hot, dry desert, while another depicted a strange looking horse. The song was later renamed "A Horse with No Name", a track that describes a difficult journey through the desert, all in search of a small measure of inner peace.
Despite the soothing vocal harmonies and folk rock guitars that define much of the album’s sound, several songs deal directly with the Vietnam War, mainly from the personal perspective of the soldiers themselves, as heard in "Donkey Jaw". In "Sandman", the familiar figure of the Sandman, traditionally associated with pleasant dreams, is turned on its head. For the soldiers, sleep was anything but comforting, becoming a nightmare driven by the constant fear of falling asleep and being killed by the enemy while they rested.
The second and most successful single from the album is the soft rock ballad "I Need You", a song that was later covered numerous times and helped define the soft rock sound for generations to come, most notably influencing bands such as "Air Supply".
On the album cover, the band members are seen standing at the front of the photograph alongside three of eight Native American prisoners who were held under guard in Montana during a period of conflict between Native American tribes and American settlers.
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