![]() ![]() Compositions can really come from completely opposite directions. So we do that, I do that, or I scribble up a lyrical idea and try to find music that fits it. He would almost start with the concept of the title because he felt the title represented, and provided a snapshot of, what the entire piece would eventually become. Or sometimes it’s been the complete opposite-our dear friend Jimmy Webb, the composer, always trained us to keep a running list of titles. So in that case my particular formula is almost non-existent I’ve been starting to take musical ideas and head to a piano or guitar, with absolutely no lyrical content. For Dewey and I, and many others, we happen to do both. Therefore this album covers quite a variety of years and material, some of it right up until very recently, and some of it from quite a long time ago.ĭo you have a set compositional process that you employ? Or is it more just how it happens to happen?įirst of all, some people just write music and others are lyricists and stuff. So there’s never a shortage of ideas, it’s really more a case of finding the time to put them down and work on them. I’m always writing if I’m not actually putting it down on tape I’m making notes or using a voice memo machine for melody ideas. So, a lot of the time that I was home, I would record. I had a studio in my house-I moved a few years ago-but I had a studio in my house for decades. What was the developmental process like for the record? How did you come up with its aesthetic? I want to congratulate you on your new album Carousel because I think it’s really incredible. In conversation with Gerry Beckley, we learn more about the origins of Carousel, his and America’s compositional processes and musical influences, and the story behind suite song “Hat Trick,” the only America track penned by all three band members-Beckley, Bunnell, and Peek. Though Peek split in 1977 for a variety of reasons and sadly passed away in 2011, Beckley and Bunnell still tour and perform as America to sold-out crowds across the nation from which they stole their name, as well as the rest of the globe. These records, many whose titles begin with the letter “H,” are as worthy-of-praise in 2016 for their overall production and top-notch songwriting as they were upon their initial release in the 1970s. Their ’71 self-titled debut album (which would include the immense hit single “A Horse with No Name” on its ’72 re-release) introduced an acoustic-forward, compositionally-seductive, nature-and-love-themed aural universe that lasted for a string of commercially successful and artistically remarkable records. Beckley’s thoughtful renditions of Spirit’s “Nature’s Way,” Gerry Rafferty’s “To Each and Everyone,” and Gerry and the Pacemakers’ “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying,” jive well with the rest of Carousel’s thematic content and allow the listener to reconsider the familiar songs in a newly visioned light.Īlong with Dewey Bunnell and Dan Peek, Beckley founded America-in England-in 1970. His McCartney-esque gift for melody still reigns supreme on Carousel and his lyrics showcase a healthy dose of realism and inventiveness, at one point even daring to utilize the logistical word “Zihuatanejo,” a move worthy of Warren Zevon himself. Consider what its tracks titled “Minutes Count” and “Serious” may imply.īut Beckley seems to have taken the other road, the one on which happiness and personal power reside. ![]() Other artists who have come to the same philosophical conclusions that Beckley has on Carousel might have been tempted toward anger, regret, fear, or perhaps worst of all, to wear Cynicism’s Crown of Superiority.
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