America News: Good and Sad

After just hearing about a new release from one of the most prolific and litened to bands of all-time, America, comes the news of the passing of one of the band's founding members.

First, some good news.

Grammy-winning rock group AMERICA--led for four decades by Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell and as active as ever with over 100 live shows worldwide a year--has released a new album, Back Pages, via Entertainment One Music. It is a rich, joyous collection of a dozen glimmering interpretations of songs by Bob Dylan, The Buffalo Springfield, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beach Boys, Jimmy Webb, Mark Knopfler as well as Fountains of Wayne, New Radicals and Gin Blossoms, among others. Upon hearing AMERICA's version of his song "Caroline No" by the Beach Boys, Brian Wilson said: "An absolutely stunning version...I almost got tears."

For all their success as hit writers of enduring rock-folk-pop classics like "A Horse With No Name," "Ventura Highway," "Sister Golden Hair," and so many others, Gerry and Dewey have never created a project that paid tribute to their favorite songs and songwriters, until now.

Available at Amazon here:

And some sad news...

America's co-founder, Dan peek has died at age 60, Billboard reports. His wife Catherine found him in bed in his home in Farmington, Mo., on Sunday. The cause of death is not yet known.

Originally from Panama City, Fla., Peek moved to the United Kingdom in the late 1960s when the Air Force sent his father to work at military base there. He met his future bandmates, Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley, at London Central High School, a school for the children of military personnel.

The trio formed America soon after graduating, choosing the name to signal that they were real Americans, not just British musicians putting on accents, which was the thing to do back in those days.

The band’s first single, “A Horse With No Name,” was a number one song in 1971. Other hits included "Lonely People” and “Sister Golden Hair."

Peek left the band in 1977 to establish a career as a Christian pop artist.