America, the Band by Jude Warne

Author:Jude Warne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

2. “Concert Review,” Billboard, May 9, 1975.

Chapter 15

The Freezing and the Fifty-Five Thousand

In November 1975, in accordance with their Warner Brothers contract, America released an obligatory greatest hits record. While other bands with similar multi-album deals might release their greatest hits albums as the last albums of their deals, America was already sitting on more hits than they could count after only five albums. Following the immense success of the band’s recent single release from Hearts, “Sister Golden Hair,” Warner Brothers aimed to strike while the iron was hot. History presented an assortment of tunes from the band’s five records, and provided the opportunity for the current producer-in-residence to try his hand at mixing the first three albums’ contributions. Songs like “Ventura Highway,” which added bass reverb and double-tracked vocals, “Sandman,” which was cut by one minute, and “Don’t Cross the River,” which added a fiddle part, were once again made new by the “fifth Beatle,” Sir George Martin. Some tracks were also crossfaded. As decades progressed and America’s familiar canon continued to receive airplay, these mixes would be used and recognized most by listeners.

History’s cover would become forever recognizable to America for its unique design. It would be brilliant for its artistic achievement in representation of the band’s entire career up until then—its “history”—which included traces of London, its Big Ben and red double-decker buses, and of California, its plethora of nature, lush green trees, and Golden Gate Bridge. And it would be notable for its then-unknown artist’s incendiary future to come. “At Hartmann & Goodman, we had my brother Phil who was the comedy legend and so forth, but he was also a brilliant designer himself and a great creator, who had done many album covers for my artists,” John Hartmann recalled. “So one day Phil comes into the office with a set of watercolors that turned out to be History: America’s Greatest Hits. He said, ‘Look, I’ve done this rough of the America cover!’ The band said, ‘That’s awesome!’ We showed the watercolors to the band and I remember Dan Peek said, ‘That’s not a rough, that’s a cover!’ Did another painting with the bass player and the drummer in front of the Crossroads of the World tower, which is where our Sunset Boulevard offices were. So Willie Leacox and bass player David Dickey were inserted into the watercolor that appears on the back of the album.”

History was released in the U.S. on November 3, 1975, and it quickly achieved multi-platinum status, holding a number three slot on Billboard’s Album Chart. America—and Warner Brothers—once again had a massive hit album. The question was—where could the group go from there?

America’s friendship with and connection to the band Chicago would always be an interesting one. Both acts were “logo groups” whose band members, despite immense commercial success and creative prowess, often became invisible behind their band names. Most young record buyers of the time knew of the bands, and many were ardent fans. But were they familiar with the

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