| Dan Seals | |
|---|---|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Danny Wayland Seals |
| Also known as | England Dan |
| Born | February 8, 1948 McCamey, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | March 25, 2009 (aged 61) Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Genres | Country |
| Occupations | Singer-songwriter |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar, saxophone |
| Years active | 1971–2009 |
| Labels | Atlantic, Liberty, Capitol, Warner Bros., Intersound, TDC, Lightyear |
| Associated acts | Jim Seals, John Ford Coley, Johnny Duncan, Brady Seals, Troy Seals |
| Website | http://www.sealsandseals.com |
Danny Wayland "Dan" Seals (February 8, 1948 – March 25, 2009) was an American musician. The younger brother of Seals & Crofts member Jim Seals, he first gained fame as the "England Dan" half of the soft rock duo England Dan and John Ford Coley, which charted nine pop and adult contemporary singles between 1976 and 1980, including the #2 Billboard Hot 100 hit "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight."
After the duo disbanded, Seals began a solo career in country music. Throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s, he released 16 studio albums and charted more than 20 singles on the country charts. Eleven of his singles reached Number One: "Meet Me in Montana" (with Marie Osmond), "Bop" (also a #42 pop hit), "Everything That Glitters (Is Not Gold)", "You Still Move Me", "I Will Be There", "Three Time Loser", "One Friend", "Addicted", "Big Wheels in the Moonlight", "Love on Arrival", and "Good Times". Five more of Seals' singles also reached Top Ten on the same chart.
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Seals was born in McCamey, Texas, to a music-oriented family. He was taught by his father to play the upright bass, and his brothers, Eddie Seals and Jim Seals, are recording artists in their own right. Dan moved to Dallas as a teenager. He graduated from W. W. Samuell High School in Pleasant Grove in 1966. He and classmate John Colley, who later changed the spelling of his last name to Coley, formed a group with three other Samuell students called the Playboys Five. The Seals brothers (Jim and Dan), as well as Crofts, are members of the Bahá'í Faith.[1] Seals' cousins include country music artists Johnny Duncan and Troy Seals, as well as Brady Seals, lead singer of the band Hot Apple Pie and ex-member of Little Texas.
Dan joined with fellow W.W. Samuell High School classmate and longtime friend John Ford Coley to perform first as part of Dallas pop/psych group Southwest F.O.B. (Freight on Board), whose material has been re-released on CD by the Sundazed label. As England Dan & John Ford Coley – Seals using a childhood nickname he'd gained from his affected English accent and love of The Beatles[2] – the two men would have several pop hits in the second half of the 1970s. "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight" was the pair's biggest hit, reaching #2 in the second half of 1976 and becoming their only gold single. Their other hits include "Nights Are Forever Without You" (#10 in 1976-77); "It's Sad to Belong" (#21) and "Gone Too Far" (#23), both in 1977; "We'll Never Have to Say Goodbye Again" (#9 in 1978); and their last top-40 hit, "Love Is the Answer" (#10 in May 1979). After seven LPs, they disbanded in 1980 and Seals reinvented himself as a solo country-pop artist, signing with Atlantic Records in 1980.
He kept the name England Dan for his debut album, Stones. Although no single charted on the country charts, his first single ever as a solo artist "Late at Night" did peak at #57 on the US Hot 100. Other than that, it was unsuccessful. In 1981, he lost nearly everything that he had in a battle with the Internal Revenue Service. His next album, Harbinger, was unsuccessful commercially. None of its singles charted, and he turned his attention to country music, adapted his style to fit country radio's demands while still keeping his signature soft sound. He signed to Capitol Records in 1983.
1983's Rebel Heart, his first album for Capitol, was much more successful than his first two albums. The first single "Everybody's Dream Girl" reached the top 20, peaking at #18. The next single "After You", however, charted lower, at #28. "You Really Go For the Heart", was even less successful, but still managed to crack the top 40, reaching #37. The album's last single, "God Must Be a Cowboy" was much more successful than the album's first three singles, becoming his first top 10 hit in early 1984, at #10. The album peaked at #40 on the country albums chart, his first album to enter Top Country Albums.
His 1984 album San Antone was even more successful. "(You Bring Out) The Wild Side of Me", the album's first single, reached #9. The next single "My Baby's Got Good Timing" became his first Top 5, at #2. In early 1985, the album's third and final single "My Old Yellow Car" peaked at #9. This album peaked at #24 on the country albums chart.
His 1985 album Won't Be Blue Anymore became his most successful studio album, reaching #1 on the country albums chart and earning RIAA gold certification. "Meet Me in Montana", a duet with Marie Osmond, became his first number-one hit in 1985 and the first of nine straight number-ones.[3] Written by Paul Davis,[4] the single won the artists the Vocal Duo of the Year Award at the CMA awards in 1986. The album's next single, "Bop", also co-written by Paul Davis, with Jennifer Kimball, became his first solo number-one and was named Single of the Year at 1986's CMA awards.[3] After it came "Everything That Glitters (Is Not Gold)", was about a rodeo cowboy having to cope with single parenthood and was written by Seals and fellow Texan Bob McDill.[5]
On the Front Line reached #12 on the country albums chart. The three singles from this album all reached number-one in 1987[3]: "You Still Move Me", "I Will Be There" and "Three Time Loser".
Dan Seals released his first compilation album The Best in 1987. All of the songs included on this album were all top ten hits. The lone new track "One Friend", which was originally included on 1984's San Antone, was re-recorded for this collection and continued his number-one streak. This album peaked at #7 and was certified platinum.
1988 saw the release of Dan Seals' Rage On album. The first single, "Addicted", not only became a number one country hit but also got its writer, Cheryl Wheeler, a contract with Capitol Records in 1989.[6] The next single "Big Wheels in the Moonlight" was released in late-1988, and reached number-one in early-1989, becoming his ninth number-one single in a row. This streak was broken when the album's third and final single "They Rage On" peaked at #5. This album peaked at #6 on the country albums chart, and is the second highest peaking of his albums.
Dan Seals began the 1990s with his eighth album, On Arrival. The first single "Love on Arrival" reached number-one in 1990, and stayed there for three weeks. After it came a cover of the Sam Cooke standard "Good Times". This cover was not only his last Number One, but also his last Top 40 hit, as the album's next two tracks ("Bordertown" and "Water Under the Bridge") failed to reach the top 40 in the United States, although they reached the top 40 in Canada.
Dan Seals' second compilation album, titled Greatest Hits was released in 1991. It contained his hits from the albums Won't Be Blue Anymore, Rage On, and On Arrival, along with a new track, "Ball and Chain", which was not released as a single.
By this time, the country music landscape had changed abruptly, and Dan Seals found his style out of favor. He moved to Warner Bros. Records in 1991, and released Walking the Wire. Only three of the five singles released from this album, "Sweet Little Shoe", "Mason Dixon Line", and "When Love Comes Around the Bend" actually charted, but none of them reached the top 40. Two other singles, "Good Goodbye", and "We Are One," failed to chart. Additionally, the album failed to crack the top country albums chart.
Although Dan Seals was a touring artist for the rest of the 1990s, he did release a few more albums on smaller labels throughout the decade, such as Fired Up in 1994, his final album for Warner Bros. He signed to Intersound and released In a Quiet Room, comprising acoustic versions of his earlier hits in 1995. He then switched to TDC and released In a Quiet Room II in 1998, followed by Make It Home in 2002.[7]
In 2008, Seals completed radiation treatments for mantle cell lymphoma at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville and at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and received a stem cell transplant in December of that year at NIH in Maryland. Seals died at the age of 61, on March 25, 2009, at his daughter's home following those treatments.[8][9][10]
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