Notes on arguably the finest British-American folk-rock album about moving to Los Angeles

"Life is made up of meetings and partings; that is the way of it."   

- Jerry Juhl, The Muppets Christmas Carol

Homecoming, America's finest album, refines and focuses the folk-pop approach found on their debut release. The songs here are tighter and more forthright, with fewer extended solo instrumental sections than before. The sound quality is clear and bright; the colorful arrangements, while still acoustic guitar-based, feature more electric guitar and keyboards. The performance quality is more assured, among the most urgently committed the group would ever put on vinyl. 
- David Cleary, Allmusic

• Their mothers were British, their fathers American servicemen.  Their childhoods were spent on a series of military bases in the U.S. and UK. 
• The album is from 1972.  It is about about California, which had always been in their heads.  In 1971 they moved to LA to work and live.
• It is is the band's best album.  Three songs made the "History" compilation, but it could have / should have been five or six.
• Homecoming comes right after their first album (#1 hit "Horse with No Name") but before George Martin and Geoff Emerick took over production duties and turned them into a singles hit machine ("Sister Golden Hair", "Tin Man", "Daisy Jane"). 
• As near as we can tell from a distance, Beckley did most of the hard production work on Homecoming, spending months in the studio, paying attention to every detail.  When George Martin came in he was having none of that, and they began to make their albums much more briskly.  But this one is handmade.
  
• Like Kind of Blue or Amanset's The Golden Band, the album expresses a specific and consistent musical language throughout, carefully wrought yet conveying a sense of spaciousness and possibility.  Very few albums have this.

Contemporary criticism of America tended to compare them unfavorably to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.  Some critics heard a similarity between Peek's voice and Neil Young's, which is understandable IF YOU'RE DEAF.  But America, at least at this point, was a very different thing given that they were kids: Beckley is 20 here.

The real influences on the band, by their own account, were the Beatles and the Beach Boys.  For  Homecoming I would also guess the LA folk scene, which was on fire in 1971, must have been a factor.  Here are the entries for 1970-71 from the Los Angeles Times' 2009 history of the LA music scene:

• Graham Nash [OBE] writes "Our House," about the Laurel Canyon home where Joni Mitchell and he live on Lookout Mountain [Joni wrote "California" at about this time].
• Neil Young records After the Gold Rush in the basement of his Topanga Canyon home on Skyline Trail.
• Janis Joplin dies from a heroin overdose in room 105 at the Landmark Hotel (now the Highland Gardens Hotel) at 7047 Franklin Avenue. She is only 27.
• Don Henley and Glenn Frey meet at the Troubadour. They become part of Linda Ronstadt's backing band and later form the Eagles. 

This is good as far it goes, but omits Carole King and James Taylor's legendary stand at the Troubadour, which is a bit like leaving Everest off your informal survey of Tibetan peaks.  King and Taylor, working with very minimal instrumentation, set a daunting standard for aspiring folk rockers.  One song in particular must have touched a chord with Peek, who quotes it in "Saturn Nights", the final song on Homecoming.



 
One more song about movin' along the highway
Can't say much of anything that's new...


Ventura Highway (Bunnell)
So of course Homecoming begins with a song about a highway.  Bunnell has said "it was 1963 when I was in seventh grade, we got a flat tire and we're standing on the side of the road and I was staring at this highway sign. It said 'Ventura' on it and it just stuck with me. It was a sunny day and the ocean there, all of it."

Later he would comment that "it was about leaving. It reminds me of the time I lived in Omaha as a kid and how we'd walk through cornfields and chew on pieces of grass. There were cold winters, and I had images of going to California. So I think in the song I'm talking to myself, frankly: 'How long you gonna stay here, Joe?'"

Similar thoughts occurred to me as I walked around Anchorage Alaska in those years, and later on as I started driving.

We know from lonesome highways.

To Each His Own (Beckley)
Another song about moving on.

Will I make it through the summer
Breaking ties with the old and new
Losing one just gains another
There is nothing I can do

Beckley:  "I wrote it when we first moved to California, and obviously there were a lot of emotions flying around, because not only was it a big step for us professionally, but it was the first time I had really moved away from home."


Don't Cross the River (Peek)
A song about being ready for transitions that come up. Henry Diltz, who was right in the middle of that LA folk scene, plays banjo.

Peek:  "Where the country influence came from, I don't know, other than that, growing up on air bases over the years, there was a lot of country music played on the base radio stations. Dewey and Gerry used to make fun of me and mock the song and compare it to 'Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town.'"




Moon Song (Bunnell)
After all the goodbyes, a beautiful love song.

Orange funnels and snowy tunnels
   Summer troubles and books in bundles
Orange funnels and snowy tunnels
   And you, and you, and you, and you, and you...

The song starts slowly but the vocal harmonies really get into gear about a minute in, and now we're hearing some Beach Boys (or Zombies?) influence.  The combination of vocal harmonies and flawless guitar work also does have a passing resemblance to CSNY, but those guys, for all their virtues, couldn't do teen white gospel like this.


Only in Your Heart (Beckley)
A deceptively simple arrangement, but Beckley reverses the tape at around the 2:10 mark, giving the closing instrumental a unique, Beatle-ish sound.


Till the Sun Comes Up Again (Beckley)
Singin' it over again, I can't recall just how it used to be
Voices across the sea...

The mental distance, loss of memory between, say 14 and 20 is probably greater than 20-60.  So much is happening.  I've always thought that voices across the seas line was about long distance phone calls back to the UK.


Cornwall Blank (Bunnell)
Bunnell:  "We were basically venturing away from our families for the very first time, and just piling into a car and driving to Cornwall was a huge undertaking for us. That's when I thought, Boy, it's nice to be out here and blank out--turn it all off. It was bitter cold, so it wasn't like the tropics, but it was the feeling of getting away."


Head and Heart (John Martyn)
The only song not written by the band, it's nevertheless a great song for them, and it hits the album's themes perfectly.  It is the most honest song on the album about the anxious energy that was propelling them at that moment, and the strain they were feeling in their personal relationships.

Laying down the ways to say I need you
Scared of lookin' tall and feeling small
Running through the days I have beside you
Scared of being wrong, and that's it all  

Here is how it sounded on Martyn's 1971 solo effort:



California Revisited (Peek)
Peek:  "I had never even been to California, but when I would meet people, regardless of where I was, it seemed like virtually every person I ever met was from there. I thought, This is impossible. It was the place to be from, and I got a little fed up with it. Then, to add to my chagrin, Catherine and I broke up after college, and she moved to California. So it was like salt in my wounds."


Saturn Nights (Peek)
One more song about movin' along the highway
Feel the fantasy in the air 

Where Carole King feels only loss, Peek finds hope and possibility.  But Carole gets the last laugh, as he, at the end of his journey, now is the one begging a loved one to stay. 

I've been waiting every morning
Just to help you find your way
I've been standing on your corner
(Don't go away) Don't go away...

As I was forming as person I listened to this album quite a bit, strongly feeling its sense of possibility, its awareness of the human cost of travel and separation, imagining those incredible spaces yet to be discovered but also taking on board the hard lesson that - wherever you go - your heart will yearn for love.  If you're lucky, sometimes you get it. 

(Lyrics to the songs and and some boxed set notes here.)