America Comes to the Thrasher-Horne Center, Friday November 13th

Dewey Bunnell (left), Gerry Beckley

Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell have been making music together as America since 1970. (The late Dan Peek was also a member of the band until 1977.) America’s first big hit was A Horse With No Name, which made it to the top of the charts in 1972. They won a Grammy Award for Best New Artist that same year. America’s 45 year journey along Ventura Highway will bring them to the Thrasher-Horne Center on November 13^th.

Six of America’s albums have been certified gold or platinum. For the past twenty years, Beckley and Bunnell have been performing over one-hundred concerts per year. This past summer, they performed in New Zealand, Australia, Argentina, and Brazil. America has toured with Chicago and The Beach Boys, and they’ve also done shows with The Doobie Brothers, Three Dog Night, and Pat Benatar. 

America’s music has an enduring appeal that is
both inter-generational and international.

"I think that the ingredients of the America sound are the basic fundamentals that translate internationally," explains Beckley. "The Italians are huge fans of dance music, but they also love a ballad -they're romantic at heart. It's the same in the Far East. A lot of times in these countries, we see people singing along, and they don't really know what the words mean. Music is truly the international language." 

Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things

Dewey Bunnell is sometimes asked what America’s greatest hit, A Horse With No Name, is about.

“As seen through the eyes of an imaginary traveler on an unnamed mount, this song is quite simply a description of the sights and sounds of the desert. The chorus is my way of explaining how the desert, and nature in general, can be used as a sanctuary from the stresses of day to day living in the human world. The final verse is a call to help conserve the environment,” he says.

A Horse With No Name has been featured on TV in episodes of The Simpsons, Breaking Bad, Friends, and Parks and Recreation. The song has also been featured in movies including The Devil's Daughter, The Trip, and Air America. It was used in a commercial for the Toyota Auris Hybrid and in the video game Grand Theft: San Andreas Fault. Songs by America have also shown up in other unlikely places. In one episode of The Sopranos, Sister Golden Hair was playing on a car radio when a character was shot.

Ventura Highway and I Need You

America’s long list of hits includes Don't Cross The River, Tin Man, Lonely People, and You Can Do Magic. Many of the group’s songs have interesting tales to go with them. For example, people sometimes ask about the "alligator lizards in the air" line in Ventura Highway. Bunnell says that the line refers to cloud shapes he saw when he was growing up near Vandenburg Air Force Base in California.

Of all the songs America has recorded, the one that has been covered the most by other musicians was I Need You. Gerry Beckley says it was the first song he ever wrote - at the ripe age of sixteen. Musicians who have covered the song include Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis, Harry Nilsson, Linda Ronstadt, Leslie Cheung, and More Than Biology.

Back Pages

Like many musicians, America has put their spin on cover versions of other musicians’ songs. On their third album, Hattrick, they recorded Muskrat Love, a tune by Willis Alan Ramsey. The song was a minor hit for America. Four years later, it became a much bigger hit for The Captain and Tenille.  

In 2011, America released Back Pages, a CD featuring America’s versions of songs by some of their favorite fellow songwriters.  The CD had songs by Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Brian Wilson, and Paul Simon.

In  a review for American Songwriter, Rick Moore wrote, “Back Pages actually shows the gutsy side of America, in that they aren’t afraid to tackle some iconic material that many would have wisely shied away from… America’s voices and ranges don’t seem to have changed a bit; if anything, these guys are just getting better, as they sing with the confidence that only age can bring.” 

Lost and Found

In May of this year, America released Lost and Found, their first CD of original material since the release of Here and Now in 2007. The music on Lost and Found was recorded between 2000 and 2011, but has never previously been released.

Steve Houk interviewed Dewey Bunnell for an article about America that appeared in The Zebra this past June.  “Lost and Found is a little slice of the last decade, things that didn’t make it onto other albums, things we never got back to,” Bunnell said. “It’s a bridge between a new album, which may or may not happen, and having our real dedicated fans keep wanting to hear new stuff.”

Looking back, Bunnell told Houk, “We’ve obviously accepted and lived each and every one of those years, but when you add ’em up and look back, it’s pretty amazing. We’ve said it over and over that we didn’t really expect to be around this long, at least musically and professionally. But it’s been good to us and we’re more than grateful for it. We really enjoy it that much more as each year has gone on.”

Looking forward, Dewey continued, “I think the music is what it’s all about. The music is what you’re keeping alive, and those songs, you want them to be as fresh feeling as you can every night.  We want people to walk out of there going, ‘Yeah, we got out of ourselves for an hour and a half.’  All the bands from the 60’s and 70’s are bringing a slice of people’s past back to them, and I think that’s what you aspire to. And now that we’ve sort of passed over that line into being more than an also-ran band, it’s about keeping this thing going. It’s about the here and now. And in this moment in time, we really seem to be clicking.”

America’s journey down Ventura Highway continues. Get your tickets to join them as they make a pit stop at the Thrasher-Horne Center on November 13^th. 

The Thrasher-Horne Center

The Thrasher-Horne Center has other great performances coming up, including Boz Scaggs in November, Michael McDonald in December, and magician Mike Super in December. Check out the calendar.

The Broadway Season at the Thrasher-Horne Center begins in December. There will be six great shows including Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Ragtime, Always… Patsy Cline, Annie, Saturday Night Fever, and the Northeast Florida Premiere of Once. Subscriptions are on sale now on the Thrasher-Horne Center’s website.

Spread the word about one of Northeast Florida’s best kept secrets! Tell your family and friends about the Thrasher-Horne Center. Share this article with them. They will appreciate learning about what they have been missing.

We appreciate you taking the time to visit us. If you have a comment about this article, leave it in the comments section below.

In this article, I’ve written about the upcoming performance of America at the Thrasher-Horne Center on November 13th. Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley have been performing as America for over four decades. Their greatest hits include A Horse With No Name, You Can Be Magic, and I Need You.

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