A lot of things in my life have changed since I was a kid. I went to college, got married, worked at several different jobs, moved from town to town…but one thing hasn’t changed: my love for Dan Fogelberg’s music. I was 16 when I heard my first Dan Fogelberg song. It was 1977 and I was in a car with my cousin’s husband when he put an 8 track into the tape deck and out came this haunting falsetto voice singing about standing on a mountaintop and thinking about what he wanted to do with his life and all the choices that lay ahead of him. The song was “Nether Lands” and it was quite a refreshing change from the head-banging top 40 rock and roll I usually listened to. I was hooked. Over the next few years, I bought all of Fogelberg’s older albums (on vinyl of course) and eagerly awaited the release of new ones.
Fogelberg was born in 1951 in Peoria, Illinois. His mother was a classically trained pianist and his father was a high school band director (Fogelberg paid tribute to his father with the song “The Leader of the Band” in 1981). At 14, he was playing the guitar in a Beatles cover band called The Clan. He started writing songs while in college and eventually quit school and moved to L.A. to pursue his musical career. His debut album “Home Free” debuted in 1972. The album failed to produce any hit singles although the first track “To The Morning” continues to be an inspirational timeless classic to this day. On his next album, “Souvenirs” (1974), Dan had a little help from Joe Walsh on the guitar and Graham Nash on vocals. The album was a smash hit and the rest, as they say, is history.
It’s hard to file Fogelberg’s music into a specific genre, although it’s obvious that his inspiration came from bluegrass, folk, rock, country and a style I like to call “that 70’s, hippie, grow your own food, commune with nature, peace and harmony” type music. He really rocks in songs like “Someone’s Been Telling You Stories” and “The Passage”, and then slows things down in tearjerkers such as “Souvenirs”(sample lyrics: “When faced with the past, the strongest man cries…”) and “The Last Nail”. He sings songs about lost loves, new loves, good memories, bad memories, things that could have been and things that will be… you know: life! The one recurring theme that runs through his music is that there is love, beauty and happiness everywhere if we can just look past the sorrow, pain and regrets. If it weren’t for the bad times, the good times wouldn’t seem so good, would they?
I hadn’t listened to his music for several years and just recently, I have begun to buy all the old albums again (this time in CD form). I wonder how I made it through all those years without these songs in my life! In 2006, Fogelberg completed his recordings for an album named “Love In Time” and placed them in a safe deposit box with instructions to his wife to release it after his death. He had been diagnosed with cancer in 2004 and died in 2007 at the age of 56. I was shocked and saddened to learn of his death. Another touchstone from my childhood was gone. His wife had his last album released in 2009.
The best that any one can hope for in this life is that part of you will live on long after you’re gone…that there will be something left for people to remember you by. Fogelberg certainly checked that off his list. His words of inspiration and hope will be around for generations and his music will continue to lift people’s spirits for years to come. He will be missed.
