Seals and Crofts were an American soft rock duo made up of James Jim Seals (born October 17, 1941) and Darrell Dash Crofts (born August 14, 1940). 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. 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 to join The Champs, but the two did so only after the groups Tequila reached #1 in 1958. Seals also spent time during 1959 in the touring band of Eddie Cochran. 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. 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 Bahai Faith). Crofts eventually returned to California to join The Dawnbreakers. However, this 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 Baháí 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. 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. 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 Baháí 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 Bahai faith. A number of their songs contain Bahai references, including passages from Bahai scriptures. When they appeared in concert, they often remained on stage after the performance to talk about the faith while local Bahais passed out literature to anyone interested. 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, along with Genevieve Dozier, daughter of Seals & Crofts engineer Joey Bogan, formed a musical trio called The Humming Birds. They released their eponymous EP The Humming Birds in September 2012. Seals is the brother of England Dan Seals, of England Dan and John Ford Coley, and later a well known country music star. Dan Seals died of cancer in 2009. At the time of his death, Dan and Jimmy Seals had been working on an album together. The status of those recordings is unknown.
Posted on: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 00:14:01 +0000
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