America - Heritage: Home Recordings/Demos 1970–1973 (2017)

In 1967, Dewey Bunnell, Gerry Beckley and Dan Peek met in high school. Sons of U.S. servicemen stationed in England, the three teenagers ultimately formed a band that was inspired by the British Invasion. Soon they began writing their own material, their songs a rich mix of pop, folk and rock, done in the burgeoning acoustic style that would soon achieve popularity worldwide. The group signed to Warner Bros. Records London in 1971 and needed a name . . . they chose America. Omnivore Recordings, in association with the group’s living founding members Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley, is proud to announce the release of Heritage: Home Recordings/Demos 1970-1973. This release is the most comprehensive collection of known demo recordings and unreleased songs from the band’s early formative years. With ten tracks making their appearance for the very first time, Heritage showcases the hugely successful trio in its most embryonic and intimate form. You will hear early demos recorded before America’s multi-platinum eponymously titled debut album from Chalk Hill Farm Studios outside of London; home recordings and previously unissued songs from Gerry Beckley’s Buzz Studios (his home in West Hollywood during the early ’70s) and an early take of one of the band’s signature songs (“Ventura Highway”) from Record Plant West in Los Angeles. And if you listen closely, you might find a hidden bonus track of the band’s first #1 single from 1972, a cappella! Follow the muse, as the band demos previously unissued songs (“Sea Of Destiny”, “Man Of Pride”) and early versions of America deep cuts (“Riverside” and “Here”). Heritage: Home Recordings/Demos 1970-1973 offers an up close and personal portrait of a band primed for stardom, creating classic songs that would still resonate almost 50 years later!

When America started out in 1970, the band's trio of singer/songwriters -- Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell, and Dan Peek -- were still teenagers, England-based Air Force brats and Neil Young fanatics blessed with a surfeit of creative ideas they scrambled to record on an almost daily basis. It was out of those exuberant early days that hits like the breezy "Ventura Highway" and "A Horse with No Name" (included here in a cappella form as a hidden bonus track) were born, launching the band to almost immediate icon status. The 2017 anthology Heritage: Home Recordings/Demos 1970-1973 documents those heady sessions when the band was working out its evocative folk-rock sound. These are raw demos of songs (some not yet complete) recorded for and during the release of the band's first three albums, 1971's America, 1972's Homecoming, and 1973's Hat Trick. Some, like 1970's "Riverside," are essentially finished pieces, and sound not too dissimilar to what made it onto the finished albums. In contrast, a track like 1972's "Wind Wave" finds the trio laying down a live, drummer-less, acoustic guitar and vocal-based rendition of the song. Unadorned by a full backing band and minus any studio sheen, one can fully imbibe just how much Crosby, Stills & Nash, and especially Young, influenced America. There are also tantalizing song fragments that never made it onto an album, like Beckley's sweetly attenuated multi-tracked harmonies on "When I Was Five." Particularly magical is the crisp early take on "Ventura Highway," bookended with studio chatter during which someone (Bunnell?) offers the understated assessment, "I think that one was better." Similarly engaging are the band's nascent readings of such well-loved songs as "Here," "Monster," and "Goodbye."