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 (who later married rock & roll singer Jo Ann Campbell), Brady Seals (of Little Texas), and country singer Johnny Duncan.

John Colley was a classically trained pianist and attended the same school. The two began working together as members of a series of local cover bands, including Playboys Five and Theze Few. They took an early run at recording success in association with Shane Keister in a series of demos done in Nashville as the Shimmerers, but the death of their producer before he could secure a recording deal ended their prospects.

It was as members of a group called Southwest F.O.B. that the pair first emerged as a formal duo. The band, with Colley on keyboards and Seals playing sax and singing, played a mixture of rock and R&B and became popular locally in Dallas. They were signed to Hip Records, an imprint of Stax/Volt, and got to number 56 in 1968 with a single called "Smell of Incense," which later yielded an album of the same name. Seals and Coley had begun writing songs together around this time and recognized that they were moving in a different direction from the rest of the band, more toward Paul Simon than Jimi Hendrix. They were soon opening shows for the band with an acoustic set featuring their harmony vocals, warming the crowd up before the entire Southwest F.O.B. took the stage, and it was from there that their formal work as a duo began. They remained with the group until 1969, when they decided to head to California and try and land a recording contract.

Originally known as Colley & Wayland (Seals' middle name), the name didn't quite work and a change was needed as proposed by Jim Seals. "England Dan" was a reference to the fact that Dan Seals, when the Beatles first hit in America in 1964, had fixated on the Liverpool quartet and briefly affected an English accent; "Ford" was added to John Colley's name, and the spelling of his last name shortened to "Coley" to assure its proper pronunciation. England Dan & John Ford Coley not only scanned well, but were unusual enough to merit a second look from programmers, reviewers, and promoters, as well as the general public, even if they'd never heard any of the duo's music.