Tag: america

BGS 5+5: High South

Posted on by Editor

Artist: High South
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Latest album: Change in the Wind

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

High South has many influences and each member has his own favorite(s), of course. Interestingly though, we really do share a LOT of influences! Groups like CSN, America, the Eagles and The Band all immediately come to mind as helping shape our music. I also feel like there was an era of music from the mid ‘60s through the ‘70s when artists were very socially conscious. They wrote about love, peace and inclusion. We’ve been inspired greatly by that same spirit and whenever possible try to inject those same ideas into our music. — Jamey Garner

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

My favorite “on stage” High South memory is a recent one. We traveled to Grundlsee, Austria, this past summer to play to 10,000 very enthusiastic music fans. It was our biggest crowd yet. Such a rush!!!! — JG

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

A favorite ritual of ours is one we like to call “The Victory Dance.” There’s a Victory Dance at some point after every single High South show. It’s a chance for (usually) just the three of us to gather ourselves, talk about the show and also usually the last chance to bring up business before we really let loose. The Victory Dance is also how we refer to the joint that gets passed around during that meeting. — Kevin Campos

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

Mission statements can be a tricky thing. Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in the big picture. Obviously, we want to spread as much peace, love and harmony as we can, on as large a scale as possible. But the deeper we get into this thing, it’s starting to become more and more apparent that the best way to spread love is to give it honestly. That requires connection on a personal level in order to be authentic. The beauty of a real expression of love is that it feeds on itself and grows exponentially. The small victories turn into big ones in a hurry. We’re just trying to water the garden plant by plant, so to speak, in hopes that human nature will take it from there. It can be a beautiful, compassionate world if we let it be. — Phoenix Mendoza

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

A part of nature that never leaves our side, especially when we’re home, is our pets. Phoenix has a dog and Jamey has two. I am the proud uncle of Rico, Boo and Lulu, respectively. Our producer and co-writer, Josh Leo, has seven dogs and four cats out on his property in College Grove, Tennessee, where we did a lot of recording for the EP. In fact, at the very end of “Change In The Wind” you can hear a bark from his dog Jack that was at the end of an acoustic guitar track. He was probably asking to be let back in after going outside to relieve himself. Needless to say, we love our pets and have an affinity for all animals. Love, in all its facets and manifestations, is a central part of what High South is about and we feel like there a lot to be learned from the type of love a dog is capable of giving to those it chooses to love. — KC

Photo credit: Jim Shea

The Essential Dan Fogelberg Playlist

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Contrary to what it sounds like on his records, Dan Fogelberg wasn’t born in Colorado. He was born in Peoria, IL, the son of a classically trained pianist mom and a high school band director dad (the person who inspired Fogelberg’s hit, “Leader of the Band”). As a teenager, Fogelberg played in the requisite Beatles cover bands before trying his hand at the folk music circuit around Chicago during the early '70s. It was there, at the famed Red Herring Café, that REO Speedwagon’s manager and future label exec, Irving Azoff, discovered him and signed him to a record deal.

Transplanted in Nashville, Fogelberg tracked his first record, Home Free, with Norbert Putnam behind the wheel. It pretty well tanked commercially (though has since gone platinum) but it encouraged Epic Records to stick with him and assign him a second session (with the strange bedfellow Joe Walsh as producer). Souvenirs — recorded with a cadre of L.A. session players plus Graham Nash and guys from both America and the Eagles — reached the Top 20, the single “Part of the Plan” made the Top 40, and Fogelberg’s career achieved liftoff.

Starting with Souvenirs, Fogelberg recorded five straight multi-platinum albums, wrapped up the '80s with a pair of platinum records, and became the unofficial voice of the Colorado snows (second only to John Denver). His 1985 album, High Country Snows, is a fine record of songs in the bluegrass tradition and, mixed in with his solo albums, he tracked two sets with jazz flautist Tim Weisberg, the first of which — Twin Sons from Different Mothers — is considered an acoustic classic.

Though some would categorize the late singer as nothing more than an MOR pablum pusher — which was true on a few occasions — Fogelberg was a well-loved performer, a respected songwriter among his peers, and a guy who made a melody sing. Herein, we offer an essential playlist of his best songs, a mix of those pop radio classics and some deep album cuts.

Photo courtesy of DanFogelberg.com

Between the Lines: ‘A Horse with No Name’

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On the first part of the journey, the part before my wreck and the horse and getting lost and things, I actually got a lot of work done. I'd been out in the Mojave Desert for three days collecting samples of lizard droppings for my doctoral thesis at the University of Paducah. Late in the late morning of the fourth day, I was looking at all the life there around my camp. There were plants and birds and rocks and things, and things that looked like rocks but turned out to be some really pristine samples of male Sauromalus ater droppings. Feeling like it's best to go out on top, I decided to head back to Paducah that day. I figured I could get to Tucumcari by midnight, and home late the next day.

I collected the last specimen, broke camp, and drove back down the one-lane desert road toward the state road and I-40. I was so excited about finding that Sauromalus scat that I mistakenly took a left at the fork instead of a right. I didn't realize this for a while, when there was sand and hills, and I felt like I'd been driving in rings around the desert. The road had narrowed to a track, with a hillside on my left and a dry riverbed to the right. This is the beginning of the second part of the journey. In attempting to back the truck up the track, I hit a soft spot and went off the road and rolled down the embankment 20 feet into the dry riverbed.

When I came to, the first thing I met was a fly with a buzz, and he was right in my face. The truck was on its side and there was the sky with no clouds through the broken passenger window. The heat was hot and I couldn't see out of my left eye. The ground was dry against my shoulder. The truck wasn't running, but the air was full of sound. The sound of thunder. I unbuckled myself and climbed out of the wrecked truck, and saw my precious lizard dung samples scattered around in the sand. I looked up when I felt the first heavy raindrops, and saw that the sky was dark and moving fast. Lightning flashed, thunder broke, the wind came up, and it began to rain in hard sheets. Water was flowing around my feet. I tried to carry an armful of specimens up the slippery bank to the road, but fell and dropped them all into the muddy torrent. Very soon after, the truck and all my work and belongings was swept away by the flood.

That's when I saw the horse. He was down the road 50 yards or so, standing and looking at me. He was black, with a white blaze on his forehead. I looked around, didn't see anyone else, and when I looked back he was walking toward me. The rain had let up and there was a little blue sky in the west, and a bit of sun coming through. The horse walked up, looked down at the water, looked up at me, and kept walking down the road in the direction I'd been heading.

"Hey Mr. Ed!" I called. He just kept walking. "Trigger! Velvet! Scout!" Still no response. "Hi ho, Silver! Pharaoh! Clover! Festus!" I followed along as he walked up the track, trying every name I knew. "Applejack! Pony! Ulysses! Major! Daisy! Babe! Gypsy! Patches! Dakota…" Eventually, I was running out of names, and I realized that we'd walked quite a distance and I was completely lost. "Virgil! Moonbeam! Bocephus! Feydra! Jake!" He stopped and looked up at "Jake." I'd done it! Then I realized he'd only stopped because a jackrabbit had run by. I started to think he might not have a name.

What would I tell my colleagues? That I've been through the desert on a horse with no name? They would certainly laugh at that. "Every horse has a name," they'd say. Well, regardless, it felt good to be out of the rain and I eventually gave up trying names on him. In the desert, they say because of the dry heat you can remember your name easily, but I think it's 'cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain in the ass about what your name is.

I kept following the horse, figuring he knew the way out of the desert.

We came out of the hills and down onto the plain, where there was a little grove of trees with a spring of cold water. I filled my canteen and the horse had some grass, as horses do. He then continued on across the desert, and I followed. After two days in the desert sun, my skin began to turn red because, of course, I hadn't grabbed my sunscreen from the truck before it washed away. After three days in the desert "fun," 
I was looking at a riverbed that had run dry. We had stopped in the shade of a mesquite tree to rest. I noted how wide the riverbed was, and the story it told of a river that flowed here made me sad to think it was dead, or dry at this time.


After nine days of this, I finally figured out he didn't know where he was going, as well as having no name. So, I let the horse run free, because the desert had turned to sea anyway, and I was sure I was near Encinitas or somewhere. There were plants and birds and rocks and things here, too, but different species and geology, of course. 
There was also sand and hills here, and the surf is so loud it rings in your ears. In a way, the ocean is a desert with it's life underground, or actually, I meant to say, underwater, and with a perfect disguise above. Back in civilization, under the cities lies a heart made of ground and concrete and wires and pipes, But the — we — humans will give no love to this heart/ground continuum.

I eventually made it back to Paducah safely. I sit here in my lab and look out over the leafy campus and wonder about that horse, and if anybody ever figured out what his name is.

Story by Freedy Johnston based on "A Horse with No Name" by America. Photo credit: Neil Kremer / Foter / CC BY-ND.