[Deathwatch] Dan Seals, musician, 61

[Deathwatch Central]

Dan Seals, Pleasant Grove youth who grew up to be music star, dies at
61

Friday, March 27, 2009

By MICHAEL GRANBERRY

Dan Seals, the kid from Pleasant Grove who emerged as a country music
star after performing as one-half of the top 40 hit machine known as
England Dan & John Ford Coley, died Wednesday night from complications
of lymphoma.

Seals, 61, was born in West Texas but moved to Dallas as a teenager. He
graduated from Samuell High School in Pleasant Grove in 1966. He and
classmate John Colley, who later changed the spelling of his last name
to Coley, formed a group with three other Samuell students called the
Playboys Five. That became Theze Few, which morphed into the legendary
Dallas high school band Southwest F.O.B.

"We were very popular in the late 1960s," Coley, 60, said Thursday from
his home in Nashville, Tenn., where Seals also lived. "We even opened
for Led Zeppelin and Three Dog Night, and remember, we were just high
school kids."

As the friendship blossomed, Seals' brother Jim was emerging as a
musical superstar. Jim Seals was part of the multi-platinum-selling duo
Seals & Crofts. But Dan Seals and Coley would soon put their own stamp
on music.

They formed England Dan & John Ford Coley and became the toast of 1976
when their single, "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight," and album,
Nights are Forever, became gold records, meaning each sold more than
500,000 copies. The duo also recorded an album titled Dowdy Ferry Road
, named after a favorite thoroughfare in their Pleasant Grove
neighborhood.

"Dan and I used to go down there and shoot snakes," Coley said with a
laugh.

But as often happens in the high-pressure, big-money industry, the
group fractured. England Dan & John Ford Coley lasted from 1970 to
1980, at which point, "there were a lot of different influences coming
into us from different people," Coley said. "And it kind of put a
little wedge in there."

Finally, he said to Seals, "Look, man, we're on top of this thing, and
we're thinking of calling it, so let's call it now while we're still on
top. ... It was a real loss. Dan and I were more like brothers. It was
like having a family rift, where you just don't speak for a couple of
years."

In 1982, the two saw each other in Dallas. "We sat down and got
everything straight," Coley said.

About that time, Seals moved to Nashville and launched his solo country
career. He recorded 16 studio albums and notched more than 20 singles
on the country charts, with 11 reaching No. 1. They included "Meet Me
in Montana," with Marie Osmond, "Bop" and "Everything That Glitters (Is
Not Gold)."

Seals contracted lymphoma two years ago.

On Monday night, Coley and Seals shared a final conversation. "We told
each other we loved one another," Coley said. Looking back at pictures
of the two, circa 1970, Coley said, "We had that emaciated rock-star
look," but in their case, it wasn't affected.

"We were so doggone poor," Coley said. "Dan had an eight-string Martin
guitar that had once been a 12-string. He took four strings off because
you can boil strings only so many times. We were just broke."

And then the hits started coming, though they never felt rich.

"We never sat down and thought about having time to spend the money,"
Coley said with a laugh. "We just knew they wouldn't be turning off the
telephone that month."

Seals was married to Andrea "Andi" Gilbert Seals. He was the father of
four children and had seven grandchildren. He died at the Nashville
home of his daughter, Holley Lizarraga, according to Tony Gottlieb,
Seals' manager since 1979. Gottlieb said the funeral will take place
Saturday at the Baha'i Center in Nashville. The family has requested
that flowers not be sent.

"If you want to honor Dan," Gottlieb said, "you should oppose bigotry,
intolerance and prejudice."


Many thanks to Deathwatch Central for posting this obituary