DanFOGELBERG, who died after a long battle with cancer on 16 December, 2007, was a popular and multi-talented American songwriter and musician who epitomised the soft rock of the late 1970s.
He was best known for his hit songs Leader of the Band and Same Old Lang Syne – fine examples of his velvety voice, subtle arrangement and emotive lyrics – and made over a dozen studio albums.
Dan Fogelberg was born on 13 August, 1951, in Peoria, Illinois. He was the youngest of three sons to Margaret Irvine, a Scottish immigrant and operatic student, and Lawrence Fogelberg, a band leader and music teacher. It was little surprise that a career in music awaited Dan, though he spent much of his youth trying to avoid piano lessons.
His problem was not the lack of a love for music, but a short attention span. This also led to him learning to draw during boring church services. His first guitar was an old Hawaiian slide guitar, a challenging instrument for any musician, let alone an 11-year-old, but Dan took to it naturally.
Inspired by the Beatles in the early 1960s he began writing rock ’n’ roll songs. He was in a Beatles cover band at high school and was picking up further influences, including the psych-pop of the Byrds, the delicate folk of Joni Mitchell and the country rock of Neil Young and Buffalo Springfield. He joined an R&B group called the Coachmen and began to introduce these styles to their repertoire.
Realising that his future lay in performing he started an acting course at the University of Illinois, but changed his major to art after becoming disillusioned with campus politics. He began performing at the Red Herring folk club where he formed associations with like-minded artists. These associations led to an unlikely gig at a rowdy frat party where agent Irving Azoff (later associated with the Eagles, REO Speedwagon, Journey, Van Halen and Steely Dan among others) decided that Dan Fogelberg was "ready for the big time".
He dropped out of university, headed west in a pickup truck and arrived in LA where, after three months of negotiations, Azoff landed him a deal with Columbia. He settled in Laurel Canyon and began writing material for his debut album, Home Free (1972). The album’s reception was subdued, but a follow-up, Souvenirs (1974), fared better, reaching number 17 on the Billboard chart.
Dan Fogelberg’s wistful but elaborate records would feature a host of esteemed session musicians but he would play many of the instruments himself, from keyboards to vibraphone. By the end of the decade his albums were breaking the top ten, with Phoenix (1979) reaching number 3 and spawning two hit singles, while 1981 was his most successful year with the double album The Innocent Age and singles Same Old Lang Syne, Hard to Say and Leader of the Band (an ode to his father) all charting high.
He continued to record throughout the 1980s and into the early ’90s, dabbling in different musical styles including bluegrass, jazz and classical, and he toured annually to great acclaim, though he would often shun commercial and promotional activities. His eloquent lyrics ranged in subject matter from deeply personal stories (his 1987 album Exiles was about his divorce from his first wife) to social and environmental issues.
In 2004, shortly after the release of Full Circle, his first album of new material for a decade, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He underwent treatment and announced his intention to resume recording, but also saying he was enjoying spending time with his third wife, Jean, a fellow musician. He moved to Maine in 2005 where he died with his wife by his side following a relapse of his cancer.
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