"The Coachmen" 1968
John Asher, Tom Cain, Robyn Sleeth, Dan Fogelberg, and Terry Walters
You can read more about The Coachmen, then and now, at Jon Asher's blog, "About My Best Friend"
Side A: "Maybe Time Will Let Me Forget"
Side B: "Don't Want To Lose Her"
Side A: "Tiger"
Side B: "Ballad of Lady James"
LabSound Champaign Illinois
Bucyrus Erie
"Tiger" & "Ballad of Lady James"
"It was around 1970, in Champaign, Illinois, and journeyman composer Dave Luck had just put the finishing touches on two songs, Sweet Lady James and The Tiger. He hired Dan and three excellent musicians to breathe life into the tunes - both vocally and instrumentally in Dan's case.
(He also hired Rick Mansfield and me, but we just got in the way.)
The details are quite foggy 46 years later, but I think Dave had entrepreneurial plans
for his tunes sung by Dan. Who didn't?"
~ Elliott Delman
Dan Fogelberg - Lead Vocals
Elliot Delman - Guitar & Vocals
David Luck - Guitar
Rick Mansfield - Flute/saxophone/harmonica
Jim McNeely - Piano
Charlie Braugham - Drums
Jeff Foote - Bass
Music by D. & S. Luck | Words by D. Luck & D. Fogelberg
Folk Music From The Red Herring Coffee House, Urbana, Illinois
Fall Folk Festival 1969
Dan Fogelberg - "The Actress and the Artist"
Folk Music From The Red Herring Coffee House, Urbana, Illinois
Folk Music From The Red Herring
Fall 1970
Dan Fogelberg - "Hickory Grove"
"Hickory Grove was one of our earliest experiments with overdubs. I had a key to RoFran recording studios, and we would go in late at night and play till the sun came up. Dan knew exactly what he wanted to hear. He had all four parts in his head, and he couldn't wait to get it down on tape. We used a four track, half inch Ampex recording machine that was literally the machine that Les Paul first invented for mult-tracking. (*Same model the Beatles used on Sgt. Peppers)
Since we only had four tracks, Dan would literally do the lead guitar parts and vocal harmonies at the same time. You can hear four voices at the end.
You should have seen the smile of satisfaction on his face, when we finally mixed it all down, and he got to hear his composition the way he intended. This was very rare, at the time. Very few musicians knew how to negotiate the complexities of arranging and recording a song where you played all the the parts yourself. It was the blueprint for future recordings such as "Home Free" and "Captured Angel," that featured Dan on 90 to 100 percent of the parts for every song."
~ Peter Berkow
Folk Music From The Red Herring Coffee House, Urbana, Illinois
The Red Herring BOOTLEG ALBUM
Dan Fogelberg - "Looking For A Lady"
"Yet music kept calling, this time in the form of a kindred soul, musician Peter Berkow, who ran a little folk music club called The Red Herring. Berkow invited him to perform, and before long Fogelberg was a cherished part of the burgeoning coffee house scene. 'I started meeting like-minded people, musicians who were bright and well read, and I realized that I was finally free of the provincialism of high school' He started playing his own songs, and the spirit of the scene shifted from politics to music:'The Red Herring went from being a hide-out for pinko leftists who were plotting the overthrow of the government to a really creative musical scene. And it started packing people in.'"
- Paul Zollo
From "Portrait - The Music of Dan Fogelberg from 1972-1997" (4 CD box set)
Photo of Dan revisiting The Red Herring in April of 2003, courtesy Jean Fogelberg.