England Dan & John Ford Coley

The 1970s produced relatively little popular music displaying elegance and unassuming charm. Often identified by pop historians as the "me" decade, it was an era of tremendous self-indulgence -- in music and everywhere else -- marked most strikingly by open, almost frenzied sexual exploration. Running almost counter to these currents were a handful of pop/rock acts of the period that managed to make some headway against the twin assaults of disco and punk on the musical consciousness, and got listeners to slow down and appreciate life. England Dan & John Ford Coley were one of the better such acts. Although considered a mid-'70s phenomenon, and often misidentified in peoples' memories as a one-hit act, they actually charted six Top 40 pop singles, four of them Top Ten, in just four years. Their history actually goes back a decade prior to their first and biggest hit, "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight." The duo first met in high school in Dallas, TX, during the early '60s. Dan Seals, as he was known formally and as he later re-established himself as a country artist in the 1980s, came from what, by anyone's definition, could be considered a musical family. Born in McCamey, TX, in 1948, he was the son of E.W. "Waylon" Seals, a pipe fitter and repairman for Shell Oil who also played guitar and bass, and was an alumnus of bands led by Ernest Tubb and Bob Wills. Dan learned to play upright bass at age four and soon after, he was playing in the family band founded by his father. His older brother, Jim Seals, enjoyed a considerable career of his own as a member of the Champs from 1958 through the mid-'60s. His other brother is successful country musician Eddie Seals (of Eddie & Joe), while his cousins included composers Chuck Seals (author of "Crazy Arms") and Troy Seals...