Seals and Crofts
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This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. (August 2009) |
| Seals and Crofts | |
|---|---|
 Seals and Crofts in 1975. |
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Genres | Soft rock, pop rock |
| Years active | 1969–1980, 1991–1992, 2004 |
| Labels | Warner Bros. Wounded Bird |
| Associated acts | The Champs |
| Past members | Jim Seals Dash Crofts |
Seals and Crofts were a band made up of Jim Seals (born James Seals, October 17, 1941) and Dash Crofts (born Darrell Crofts, August 14, 1940). The soft rock duo was one of the musical acts of the 1970s. They are best known for their Hot 100 No. 6 hits "Summer Breeze", "Diamond Girl", and "Get Closer".
The duo disbanded in 1980. They reunited briefly in 1991–1992 and again in 2004, when they released their final album, Traces.[1]
Both members have long been public advocates of the Bahá'í Faith.
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Career [edit]
Jim Seals and Dash Crofts were both born in Texas, Seals in Sidney and Crofts in Cisco. They first met when Crofts was a drummer for a local band. Later, Seals joined a band called Dean Beard and the Crew Cuts where he played guitar; later on Crofts joined the band. With Beard, they moved to Los Angeles, California to join The Champs, but the two did so only after the group's "Tequila" reached #1 in 1958.
In 1963, Jimmy Seals, Dash Crofts, Glen Campbell, and Jerry Cole left The Champs to form a band named "Glen Campbell and the GCs" which played at The Crossbow in Van Nuys, CA. The band only lasted a couple of years before the members went their separate ways. Crofts returned to Texas and Seals joined a band named The Dawnbreakers (a reference to a book by the same name about the beginnings of the Baha'i Faith). Crofts eventually returned to California to join The Dawnbreakers. However, The Dawnbreakers turned out to be unsuccessful. Crofts married fellow Dawnbreaker Billie Lee Day in 1969, and both Seals and Crofts were introduced to and became members of the Bahá'í Faith.
After the failure with The Dawnbreakers, the two decided to play as a duo, with Seals on guitar, saxophone and violin, and Crofts on guitar and mandolin. They signed a contract with the record division of Talent Associates (TA) in 1969 and released two LPs, of which, only the second reached the Billboard 200 chart, peaking at No. 122 in October 1970. The pair signed a new contract with Warner Bros. Records in August 1971.[2] Their first album with their new label did not break into the charts, but their second album Summer Breeze charted at No. 7 in 1972. The record sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A. in December 1972.[3]
The duo played at the California Jam festival in Ontario, California on April 6, 1974. Attracting over 200,000 fans, the concert put them alongside '70s acts such as Black Sabbath, Eagles, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Deep Purple, Earth, Wind & Fire, Black Oak Arkansas, and Rare Earth. Portions of the show were telecast on ABC Television in the US, exposing the duo to a wider audience.
After a long and successful run of recordings in the 1970s, the two lost their contract with Warner Brothers in 1980 and decided to set aside music for a while. They held a short reunion tour in 1991–1992 and appeared at several Bahá'í gatherings. Crofts lived in Mexico, Australia and then Nashville, Tennessee, playing country music and making occasional hit singles. Seals moved to Costa Rica and has lived on a coffee farm off and on since 1980, as well as in Nashville. Crofts currently resides on a ranch in the Texas hill country.
Seals and Crofts are longtime adherents of the Baha'i faith. A number of their songs contain Baha'i references, including passages from Baha'i scriptures. When they appeared in concert, they often remained on stage after the performance to talk about the faith while local Baha'is passed out literature to anyone interested.[4]
In 1991, Seals and Crofts reunited and performed until disbanding again a year later. In 2004, they reunited again and recorded their first new album since 1980, released as Traces.
In 2011 the bandmates' daughters, Juliet Seals and Amelia Crofts, formed a musical trio, along with Seals & Crofts' engineer's (Joey Bogan) daughter, Genevieve Dozier, called The Humming Birds. They released their first EP "The Humming Birds" in September 2012.
Discography [edit]
Albums [edit]
- Seals & Crofts, 1969
- Down Home, 1970
- Year of Sunday, 1971, No. 133
- Summer Breeze, 1972, No. 7
- Diamond Girl, 1973, No. 4
- Seals & Crofts I & II, 1974
- Unborn Child, 1974, No. 14
- I'll Play for You, 1975, No. 30
- Greatest Hits, 1975, No. 11
- Get Closer, 1976, No. 37
- Sudan Village, 1976 (live), No. 73
- One on One (soundtrack), 1977, No. 118
- Takin' It Easy, 1978, No. 78
- Collection, 1979
- The Longest Road, 1980
- Lote Tree, 1980
- Traces, 2004
Singles [edit]
| Year | Single | Peak chart positions |
Album | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US [5] |
US AC | ||||||||
| 1971 | "When I Meet Them" | 104 | — | Year of Sunday | |||||
| 1972 | "Summer Breeze" | 6 | 4 | Summer Breeze | |||||
| 1973 | "Hummingbird" | 20 | 12 | ||||||
| "Diamond Girl" | 6 | 4 | Diamond Girl | ||||||
| "We May Never Pass This Way (Again)" | 21 | 2 | |||||||
| 1974 | "Unborn Child" | 66 | — | Unborn Child | |||||
| "The King of Nothing" | 60 | 26 | |||||||
| 1975 | "I'll Play for You" | 18 | 4 | I'll Play for You | |||||
| "Castles in the Sand" | — | 21 | |||||||
| 1976 | "Baby I'll Give It To You" | 58 | 14 | Sudan Village | |||||
| "Get Closer" | 6 | 2 | Get Closer | ||||||
| 1977 | "Goodbye Old Buddies" | — | 10 | ||||||
| "My Fair Share" | 28 | 11 | One on One soundtrack | ||||||
| 1978 | "You're the Love" | 18 | 2 | Takin' It Easy | |||||
| "Takin' It Easy" | 79 | — | |||||||
| 1980 | "First Love" | — | 37 | Longest Road | |||||
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart | |||||||||
Songs in movies [edit]
- "These Moments Never Live Again", from Foolin' Around (1980)
- "My Fair Share", from One on One (1977)
- "Get Closer"
- "Summer Breeze" from Dazed and Confused (1993)
- "Summer Breeze" from King of California (2007)
- "Summer Breeze" from Land of the Lost (2009)
See also [edit]
- Dan "England Dan" Seals, Jim Seals' brother, was also a successful recording artist, first in the pop duo England Dan & John Ford Coley and later as a country music artist.
- Troy Seals, country music artist, a cousin of Jim Seals.
- Brady Seals, a cousin of Jim Seals, frontman of the country groups Little Texas and Hot Apple Pie.
References [edit]
- ^ Steve Huey. "Seals & Crofts – Biography". All Music Guide. Retrieved June 28, 2010.
- ^ "S&C Sign". Sounds (Spotlight Publications). 28 August 1971. p. 2.
- ^ Murrells, Joseph (1978). The Book of Golden Discs (2nd ed.). London: Barrie and Jenkins Ltd. p. 320. ISBN 0-214-20512-6.
- ^ Steve Huey. "Seals & Crofts – Biography". Pandora. Retrieved September 20, 2010.
- ^ Whitburn, Joel (2011). Top Pop Singles 1955–2010. Record Research, Inc. p. 792. ISBN 0-89820-188-8.
- George-Warren, H. (ed.) The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, 3rd ed., Fireside, New York, 2001.
- Landau, Deborah. "Introducing Seals and Crofts", Stereo Review, January 1971.
External links [edit]
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