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    Gerry Beckley

    Biography

    Known mostly as half of the platinum-selling group America with co-founder Dewey Bunnell, Gerry Beckley has recorded and released eight solo albums starting with Van Go Gan in 1995.  He has been signed to indie Blue É Show More

    Known mostly as half of the platinum-selling group America with co-founder Dewey Bunnell, Gerry Beckley has recorded and released eight solo albums starting with Van Go Gan in 1995.  He has been signed to indie Blue Élan Records since putting out Carousel on the label in 2016.  

    His latest solo effort, Aurora, coming on the heels of last year’s greatest hits album, Keeping the Light On: The Best of Gerry Beckley, is at once a look back on some of his original influences – among them the triple Killer B’s of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Bee Gees, with Chicago thrown into the mix – as well as a fresh start, a clean slate moving forward.

    Recorded during the pandemic at Beckley’s two home studios in his dual bases of Sydney, Australia, and Venice, California, Aurora is an introspective album that takes stock of his life – past, present and future. Playing virtually all the instruments and producing (with Jeff Larson), Beckley shows off his skill at orchestral pop in the opening title track and closing “Tears,” which serve as both overture and reprise, bookends to a set of songs that range from the universal to the personal, sometimes in the same song (as on the cosmic romantic ballad “Aurora”).  

    Beckley says the recently penned title track, an unabashed love song, uses the natural phenomenon of light in the sky at dawn, which befits an album-opener, as a metaphor for the life-changing event of meeting his wife and moving to Australia. 

    “When you hold a mirror up to your life, it’s hard to control how much of your life is in that reflection,” he says. “I don’t want to say it’s about one thing in particular, I’d rather leave it more open-ended.”

    The effect is that while our feet may be planted on the ground, our gaze is set on the firmament, a theme Beckley comes back to on album tracks like “Never Know Why” (“Stars fall out of the sky”), “Way to Go” (“You left without a sound/Feet never touched the ground”) and “Aerial” (“I hear a distant bell”). 

    “This is a time of great reflection whether we like it or not,” he says. “If we treat this pandemic as the lesson it could and should be, this could be a moment for great growth, because even with the immense challenges we face, there is still hope.”

    The first single, “Friends are Hard to Find,” seeks to relieve the isolation all of us felt during the last nearly two years, with a hopeful, handclapping, crowd-sourced party atmosphere to provide the respite that music can offer in times of stress. Gerry acknowledges channeling the spontaneous creativity of his good friend, prolific songwriter Jimmy Webb. 

    The second focus track, “Tickets to the Past,” offers a trip down memory lane, a melodic conversation with his longtime America partner and co-writer Dewey Bunnell, who also contributes vocals, the first time the two have collaborated on a recording outside of the band to Gerry’s knowledge.

    In terms of influences, “Way to Go” sports funky horns and a disco beat that recalls the Bee Gees in their Saturday Night Fever heyday (along with Philly International producer Thom Bell, according to Beckley), with shades of Chicago, while the closing “Tears” is another stylistic nod to Barry Gibb, one of his acknowledged favorite songwriters. 

    As for the Fab Four, check out the sitar in “Peace of Mind,” which echoes George Harrison, along with a McCartney-esque “Band on the Run” bass line.  Beckley originally got to meet Harrison after being introduced by their mutual press rep, Derek Taylor, who worked for Warner Bros. UK, where America the band was signed. 

    Completing the musical trilogy, “Never Know Why” sports exquisite Beach Boys harmonies, thanks to frequent Brian Wilson collaborator Jeffrey Foskett’s soaring falsetto, recalling the fact Beckley recorded an album with the late Carl Wilson and Chicago’s Robert Lamm, while the penultimate snippet, “Superscope,” offers a similar SoCal vibe for a “Christmas without snow.”

    Songs like “I Fall Down” show a vulnerability that hides a shy off-stage persona, while in “Way to Go” he sings, “If I stumble in my search/Would you find me?” 

    “I’m a pretty solitary guy,” says Gerry. “I’m not one for much socializing when I’m not performing.”

    As befits its simultaneous look back and forward, the songs on Aurora include “some old and some new,” unfinished demos and scratch recordings from as early as the mid-‘70s, along with tracks “started from scratch” over the past two years.  With America, who still perform more than 100 live dates a year, unable to fully tour during the last two years, Beckley turned to “my main hobby,” writing and recording almost 40 tracks, pared down to the 11 included on the album.

    Sequenced like a traditional vinyl album, with a Side 1 and 2, Aurora is the work of a lifelong performer who hasn’t stopped growing, personally and creatively, with a beginning, middle and end. “Tears” rain down in the soaring finale, cleansing the soul and enabling us to pick ourselves up and start all over again. Beckley’s songs offer a larger-than-life canvas that also drills down into the granular, the smallest musical details... an accordion here, a trombone there, a sitar, bouzouki, oboe, clavinet or mellotron, all played by Gerry, “not very well,” he modestly adds. 

    “I wanted to start big and end big,” explains Beckley about the album’s bookends. “Everything but the kitchen sink. 

    “Still, the most important thing is to write from the heart.  I’ve always remained true to myself in that way.”

    Aurora is Gerry Beckley’s answer to the pandemic which isolated us all for two years, taking that narrative and turning it into a positive, both in the music and its message.

    And while he seems to have been preoccupied with his solo career lately, Beckley reveals that America – whose multi-platinum run includes hits such as “A Horse with No Name,” “I Need You,” “Ventura Highway,” “Sister Golden Hair,” “Tin Man” and “You Can Do Magic”– has already resumed touring, with 50 dates scheduled for this year. 

    “At the risk of blowing our own horn, this band is the best it’s ever been,” he says. “The production of the show is top-notch, with great videos. But we’ve got to pace ourselves.  It’s like running a marathon every night.  And the shows are still rewarding.”

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