[February]
[April]
Last Revised: 6 January 1998
March 1996
America Trivia
New View From the Ground cd
America Spring/Summer Schedule
Las Vegas Desert Inn Reviews
Seven Springs, PA Review
American History
This and That (Letters from Readers)
*****
America Trivia
Those of you who responded to last month's trivia question about the girls named in Gerry's songs really did a fine job! Here's the list:
Clarice, Mary, Daisy Jane, Sister Golden Hair, Caroline, Sarah, Jody, Greta Garbo, Emma, Sue, Muskrat Susie, Mama.
Here's some new trivia questions for this month:
1. On the Hearts album, the credit for "Story of a Teenager" is listed as being written for the film of the same name:
a. What title was the film actually released under?
b. What other America song was also used in the soundtrack?
(submitted by Tom Dunn)
2. What was the name of the great studio guitarist that played the sitar on the Harbor album? (submitted by LunarKid@aol.com)
3. What former Saturday Night Live cast member was the album cover illustrator for America's History album? (submitted by EVETSJS@aol.com)
Good luck! Answers next month!!
*****
New "View from the Ground" cd
According to the ICE CD www site (http://www.webcom.com/ice/home.html) "View from the Ground" will be released domestically on March 19 by One Way records.
You can contact them at this address:
One Way Records,
1 Prospect Avenue,
P.O. Box 6429,
Albany, NY 12206-0429.
Many thanks to Mike Robinson for this information!
*****
Spring/Summer Schedule
The following are the current confirmed dates for America for the coming months. Hopefully, many dates will be added to these. Also, be aware that all dates are subject to change, so watch for updates!!
April 19 San Juan, Puerto Rico
April 20 Valley Forge Music Fair, PA
April 26 Metropolis, IL
April 27 Jackson, MS
May 4 Ocean City, MD
May 11 Pittsburgh, PA
June 17-22 France
July 5-6 Horizon, Lake Tahoe
July 10 Livermore, CA
July 25 Waukesha, WI
July 26 Wheaton, IL
July 27 Columbus, OH
July 28 Jackson, NJ
August 1 Albert Lea, MN
August 2 Vancouver, WA
August 7 Paso Robles, CA
August 10 Malone, NY
August 25 Hershey Park, PA
August 28 Centre Hall, PA
August 29 Essex Junction, VT
August 31 Detroit, MI
October 4 Humphrey's, San Diego, CA
October 5 Ventura, CA (NOT CONFIRMED)
***** Desert Inn, Las Vegas Review
The Desert Inn shows on March 8, 9, and 10 were absolutely amazing!
Although crowds were light on two nights, Saturday night was jam packed with people singing along and having a grand time!
The highlight of the shows for many of us was Gerry's solo acoustic performance of "All My Life" which he played for the first encore on Friday night. It brought tears to many eyes...including mine.
(It's my very FAVORITE America song.....with "One in a Million" a close second!)
I'll print a detailed accounting of these shows, along with the Planet Hollywood unplugged performance and the baseball game national anthm appearance in an update that will come out next week......
*****
Seven Springs, PA Review
America were special guests of the Sheetz Corporation at a company retreat at the Seven Springs ski resort in Pennsylvania on March 12. The concert was FANTASTIC....and VERY much enjoyed by the crowd!!
The set was the same one played for the Vegas shows, with the deletion of "Young Moon" and "Hope." The guys spent awhile one afternoon rehearsing "Sergeant Darkness" and "Amber Cascades" which may sneak into the playlist at some point in the future!!
The funniest part of the event was when an elderly gentleman approached me during the show and asked if "the drummer" was the "only original member". I explained that he wasn't, and the guy answered, "Well, he's the only one who looks OLD enough to be an original member!"
Needless to say, everyone (except Willie) got a big kick out of that!!
*****
American History
March 1973 (Billboard)
America at the Los Angeles Music Center Pavilion
"Probably the best way to understand the instant and universal youth appeal of America is to think of them as the Kingston Trio of the '70's. where the Kingston Trio wore striped, button-down shirts and cut their hair neatly, America lives up to current social patterns by looking as if they just wandered in from the neighborhood hamburger drive-in to sing their latest gold single.
Where the Kingston Trip made corny jokes about drinking and sex, America is just as corny about dope and sex. Down-playing their top 40 success, they introduced "Don't Cross the River If You Can't Swim the Tide" as "the Vomit Song" and said it was about swallowing massive amounts of joints and pills to escape a customs shakedown at the Canadian border.
However, the main similarity between the Kingston Trio and America is that the audience for each group considered the artistsa s "some of the boys" who just happened to have learned a few more licks on the acoustic guitar and fell in with some harmonizing cohorts. In other words, anybody at the show could think of themselves as being the stars, if they'd had a little luck.
America opened with a set of beautiful unamplified music which included all their hits from "Horse With No Name" onward. The songs are ambitiously abstract and musically compelling, even if lyric and syntax occasionally gets crude...."
*****
This and That (Letters from Readers)
From Cathy:
"I do have a rather old, but funny story regarding America and the band Boston.
Seems back in the late 70's, Boston borrowed America's plane for their own tour across the country. They put a banner of sorts over the America logo on the outside of the plane.
Somewhere over the midwest it fell off. When they arrived in the West, California I think, a huge crowd had gathered to greet the band. The guys in Boston were so surprised and excited that they had so many fans. Once they got off the plane, though, they were rudely awakened to the fact that the fans thought they were America and were disappointed--both the fans and the band.
I heard this story from a couple of the guys in Boston who thought it was both funny and embarassing!"
"I was in China a few years ago teaching at a university and I brought along some America tapes. I loaned one of them out to a girl at the school. It took forever for her to return it to me. Finally, at the end of the school year she did. Then she told me why she had taken so long to return it to me. Turns out she was a DJ for the campus radio station and listeners kept requesting that she play stuff off of it (I can't remember which tape it was.) I suspect she ended up making a copy of it. but...if America ever wants to play in the city of Taiyuan in china's Shanxi province, they'd have some prepared fans....." *****
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Last Revised: 6 January 1998