~ Biography By Paul Zollo ~
Taken From The
Insert of "Portrait"
It's one of his earliest memories: He's four years old, standing
up on a box in front of his father's big band, baton in hand,
conducting. Though his dad stood behind him, doing the real
work, for Dan it was a foreshadowing of what his life would be
-- following in his father's footsteps to become the leader of
the band. "It was an amazing feeling," he declared
decades later during a series of discussions for these notes.
"To be immersed in music. It felt both very magical and
powerful. And I was fearless."
That fearlessness has led him far, as he developed into one
of popular music's most gifted and successful
singer-songwriters. With an early genius for both melody and
harmony, a soulfully angelic singing voice, and a natural gift
for romantic expression, Dan Fogelberg has created songs that
have become so embedded in our collective consciousness that
they still resound with authentic magic and beauty years after
they first emerged.
I was raised by a river
Weaned upon the sky
And in the mirror of the waters
I saw myself learn to cry
From The River
|
Dan's Childhood Home |
His story starts in Illinois. In Peoria, specifically, a
little town that in the words of Charles Kurault, is in the
middle of the state, in the middle of the country, in the middle
of the world. Born the youngest of three sons, he was raised in
a musical home. His father, Lawrence Fogelberg, was a
"legitimate musician" as Dan refers to him, a
bandleader who led the big bands long before Dan was born. His
mother, Margaret Irvine, was born in Scotland and came to
Illinois with her parents at the age of three. A gifted singer,
she studied operatic singing throughout college, and it's she
who Dan points to as the source of his innate vocal prowess.
|
Dan's Birth Announcement |
Daniel Grayling Fogelberg was born in Peoria on August 13,
1951. His father taught music in local high schools and
colleges, gave private lessons, and conducted school bands.
Dan's early creativity surfaced in imaginative ways to avoid
piano practice. " I used to fake injuries," he said
proudly, "even taping up my finger and saying I jammed it
playing baseball. But it wasn't a trick you could use a
lot." Though he didn't like lessons, he loved the
instrument itself, and would spend endless happy hours at the
keys, sounding out the hits of the day.
|
Woodruff High School |
In church, he loved the music but grew restless during the
sermons. To keep him occupied, his folks provided pen and paper,
thus fueling his love for drawing and painting that has extended
throughout his life. He was a constructive kid quick to create
his own fun -- At a cub scout jamboree where boys hurled
baseballs at old records as a kind of carnival sport, he
collected all the unbroken ones, a great bounty of old obscure
fifties pop and college fight songs.
His maternal grandfather, a steelworker from Scotland who
worked at a foundry in Peoria, gave him an old Hawaiian slide
guitar. It had pictures of dancing hula girls engraved on it, as
well as steel strings about a half-inch from the neck, tough for
anyone, but nearly impossible for an eleven year old beginner.
Yet he took to it naturally, forcing him to acquire a strong
left hand as he taught himself chords from his Mel Bay guitar
book.
In 1963, he heard the Beatles for the first time, triggering
the realization that songs are written, they don't simply just
exist. He started writing his own then, entirely in the Beatles'
pervasive thrall, while also assimilating the rock and roll
riffs of Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins, as well as the delicate
melodic leads of George Harrison. He started performing by
lip-synching with friends to Beatles records at a variety show
before forming his first real band, the Clan, who played all
Beatles songs at backyard parties and street dances. Their reign
extended through Dan's junior year in high school, when the
others fell away from music to get involved in the social matrix
of school. While their connection with music diminished, his
became more intense than ever, as did his need to express
himself in other ways, from drawing and painting to acting.
By now the music that inspired him the most was the West
Coast rock of bands such as the Byrds and the Buffalo
Springfield, as well as the contemporary folk of Paul Simon,
Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot. Having abandoned the
matching black velour pullovers favored by the Clan, his attire
now included moccasins, fringe and silver in the style of Neil
Young. When he joined a new band, the Coachmen, he did so only
on the condition that they abandon the Paul Revere & the
Raiders outfits they still wore. He was a valuable asset to the
group, bringing his repertoire of folk-rock to their mix of R
& B and soul standards, as well as possessing a great ear, a
miraculous voice, and like his father, an impressive versatility
on a variety of instruments. "We would be doing 'Bluebird'
by Stephen Stills," he remembered, "and I'd play
12-string for the whole song until the end and then launch into
banjo. Pretty adventurous for kids from Illinois."
|
The Coachmen |
These were his river years, as he withdrew daily to a sacred
spot between two ancient pines overlooking the Illinois River.
"I was not feeling like a part of Peoria anymore. I was off
in my own trip, deep inside myself. At the same time, I was
terribly excited because I was discovering this whole person I
never knew could exist, and this music and this creativity. It
was an incredible awakening, the beginning of a great journey.
And I knew the river was a conscious metaphor for my escape from
Peoria. I was just waiting to leap on its back and ride it, down
to St. Louis and New Orleans and out to the Gulf and on to the
world." A Leo with Cancer rising, he understood even then
the opposing astrological forces at work that left him feeling
conflicted -- the extroverted entertainer who exists to perform,
and the introverted artist who requires solitude.
After graduation, he felt he could have gone in many
directions, and eventually decided to pursue acting at the
University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. Finding the college
acting scene to be more political than theatrical, he switched
majors to study art, with aspirations of becoming a serious
painter.
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."
Anyone back then who heard the sophistication of his songs,
and the power with which they were rendered, knew that it was
only a matter of time before his break would come. That break
arrived late one night when a former high school sweetheart
knocked on his door, urgently awakening him from a sound sleep
to say that an important music agent wanted to hear him play.
Though half-asleep, Dan followed her to a frat party at a funky
little bar to meet Irving Azoff, a U. of I. grad now running a
local booking agency. Azoff, who had already landed the regional
band REO Speedwagon a record deal with Epic, was on the look-out
for new artists. Onstage was a raucous rock band playing to a
mostly drunken crowd, their songs punctuated by the rhythm of
beer bottles crashing against the back wall. Azoff ignored the
clamor which continued when Dan took the stage alone. Though the
bar brawls failed to subside, in the soulful beauty of
Fogelberg's songs, Azoff saw his own future. "Yeah,"
Irving said to him after his set. "You're the one. I'm
ready for the big time. And I think you're ready for the big
time, too."
|
Glenn Frey ~ Irving Azoff
~ Dan Fogelberg |
Dan dropped out of school. Shocking his parents by showing up
at home at midday in mid-semester, he told them his plans. His
father, silent for a long time, finally said quietly,
"Okay, I don't agree with this, but if this is really what
you want, you go try it for a year. If it doesn't work out, you
come back and go back to school." This support was the
greatest gift his father could give him, inspiring Dan years
later to write "Thank you for the freedom when it came my
time to go" in his famous tribute to his father,
"Leader Of The Band".
Azoff moved to Hollywood, setting up an office on Sunset
Boulevard in Hollywood directly across the street from David
Geffen, who was in the first stages of establishing his own
Asylum Records, and signing singer-songwriters such as Jackson
Browne and Joni Mitchell.
Receiving $200.00 in traveling money from Irving, Dan rented
a pickup truck in Chicago, and headed west. Running out of money
in Estes Park, Colorado, he found what he felt was the most
stunning place in the world. Remaining happily stranded there
for a week, he befriended a local hotel owner who gave him free
lodging. He spent his days hiking in the mountains, and writing
such songs as the beautiful "Song From Half Mountain".
Azoff soon wired him enough money to move on, but he never
forgot the spirit of pure inspiration he felt in those
mountains, touching him as deeply as his connection with the
Illinois River.
Arriving in L.A., a few days later, Dan headed directly to
Sunset Boulevard to meet Azoff in front of the famous
Whiskey-A-Go-Go, where his idols from Buffalo Springfield first
met. Azoff drove him to a little San Fernando Valley apartment
dubbed "The Alley in the Valley" because of its alley
entrance. They lived there together for months as Azoff shopped
his tape around town. As Dan recalled, "Irving would come
home one day and say 'Okay, the deal's done -- we're signing
with Asylum!' Then three days later he'd come back and say,
'It's A & M. I got a better deal.' This went on for months.
Then he'd come home and say, 'No, it's Capitol!" They
eventually signed with Columbia Records, persuaded by Clive
Davis in a Hollywood ritual held at a bungalow at the Beverly
Hills Hotel: "Clive had everything laid out --caviar, canapés,
the whole deal. He played me Paul Simon's first solo record,
which had yet to come out, and kept talking about a kid named
Springsteen and a guy named Billy Joel who he had signed. Clive
said, "I'm signing singer-songwriters, and I think you belong
here too." He talked us into it, gave us a nice check and we
signed with Columbia. It was 1971.
With his career now soundly on track, Dan got his first
advance check and moved to Lookout Mountain, in the heart of
Laurel Canyon, where his neighbors included the Eagles, and Mark
Volman of the Turtles. He lived there for a year and a half,
during which time the sunny inspiration that had touched so many
of his fellow canyon dwellers began to bring forth a torrent of
beautiful new songs in him. He rented a grand piano and
entranced nearby neighbors, such a famed photographer Henry
Diltz, who heard Dan playing til dawn. " I remember hearing
this incredibly beautiful music echoing through the trees,"
Henry recalled, "and I said to my wife, 'Who is this
guy?'" They all soon became fast friends, with Henry taking
famous portraits of Dan for many of his album covers.
Now it was time to record his debut album, and Azoff went off
in search of the perfect producer for the project. They found
him in Nashville. Norbert Putnam was the force behind Area Code
615, a group Dan loved. With Azoff, Dan flew to Nashville to
meet Norbert, and instantly fell in love with the town itself:
its green trees, lakes and river, and what was then a peaceful
laid-back music community, worlds away from the showbiz glitz of
Hollywood.
It was one of the happiest times in his life. Norbert found
him a place to stay in town "up in the trees," and the
future looked bright. Thanks to Norbert, he got a profusion of
session work as a guitarist and singer, perfection then the
dazzling studio chops which he's brought to all his albums
since. "I was only 21 years old and I was part of the band,
these maniacs who were amazingly good players. These guys were
much better than me, and they pulled me up to their level."
Often working from nine a.m. to midnight, four sessions a day,
he acquired a fast and comprehensive foundation in the art of
record making. "I learned that it's not what you play, it's
what you don't play. That has formed the core of my guitar
playing ever since. It's melodic, it's sparse."
The recording of Home Free for him was an easy,
non-pressurized time. He and Norbert met every day at the
studio, cut all the tracks live, and overdubbed the vocals.
"It was great fun. There was no pressure. It wasn’t New
York or L.A." The resulting album was stunningly beautiful,
opening with the now classic "To The Morning", a paean
to nature that still stands as one of the most timelessly
inspirational songs ever written. The album immediately
established that he was not only a master tunesmith, but also a
purveyor of harmonies so sweetly conveyed that they seemed
miraculous, a soulful blend of perfectly tuned, heartfelt vocal
harmonies.
Despite its abundant appeal, Home Free failed to
generate any hit singles, a setback that Clive attributed to
Norbert's Nashville production job, which he deemed "too
country" for Dan's music. So for the next album, Joe Walsh,
the hard-rocking guitar slinger from the James Gang, was
enlisted. Though feeling initially that Walsh was the wrong man
for the job, Dan was eventually convinced when he heard a solo
album Walsh had recently recorded at Caribou Ranch in Colorado
with members of Stephen Stills' band Manassas.
Dan came to Walsh with a handful of songs he'd written in Los
Angeles, as well as a new one that emerged in Nashville called
"Part Of The Plan". To choose players for the album,
Walsh told him to write down a wish list of dream musicians. The
first name he wrote down was that of the legendary Russ Kunkel,
whose drumming he'd heard on James Taylor's records. When Walsh
quickly enlisted Kunkel as well as other luminaries including
percussionist Joe Lala, bassist Kenny Passarelli, the Eagles'
Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Randy Meisner, and Graham Nash, Dan
knew he'd arrived.
The making of Souvenirs in Hollywood was unrestrained
fun as the spirit of sunny California combined with Dan's
natural Leo radiance left him feeling fearless. In the studio he
always felt at home, rising easily to the level of the L.A.
studio cats as he did with the pickers in Nashville. Even when
Walsh was on the road, Dan continued to craft the record, adding
the guitar solo on "Part Of The Plan" on his own. When
Joe heard what Dan had done, he loved it, and quickly convinced
Graham Nash to drive over and sing harmonies. The resulting
record went to the top of the charts. "That broke the whole
thing open. In an instant I went from being an opening act to
being a headliner." Souvenirs, with Walsh at the
helm, radiated with Dan's melodic brilliance as well as proving,
on burning tracks like "As The Raven Flies", that the
man also knows how to rock.
Hitting the road in 1974 with Fool's Gold, a young band from
Illinois, he toured for the next two years. "Suddenly we
were rock stars. These were heady days. We were soaking it up,
and thought we were more important than we were. But really we
were just these kids from Illinois with high voices."
It was the end of the quiet time for the boy by the river.
And it was the beginning of the hurricane, a time of both
tremendous success and upheaval. "That kind of adulation
gave me so much confidence. When everybody is saying yes to you,
you're unstoppable. You're unbeatable. And I started writing
like crazy." His next album, Captured Angel, was
finished and released within a year.
In 1975, learning that his father had taken ill and was in
the hospital, Dan stopped everything to return to Peoria. He
stayed there for many months until his dad recovered, spending
his days at the hospital and his nights at a little studio in
South Pekin, recording demos of new songs. When Irving and
others heard the beauty and purity of the tracks he'd recorded
alone, which Dan intended only as blueprints for his next album,
they insisted that these were master tapes, not demos, and
didn't need to be redone. Dan wasn't convinced, but eventually
agreed on the condition that Russ Kunkel come in to redo the
drum parts he'd played himself. "I can play a lot of
instruments," he said, "but drums is not one of
them."
While touring that year through Colorado with Fool's Gold, he
learned that the house of one of his favorite musicians was on
the market, that of Chris Hillman, who played with the Byrds,
Manassas and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Fogelberg fell in love
with the mountain house, which is situated 9000 feet up on the
top of the Rocky Mountains. He immediately bought it, flew to
Nashville to pack up his belongings, and hurried back to the
splendor of Colorado.
It was an unforgettable winter. Perched at his grand piano,
he had a breathtaking view of the Continental Divide, like
sitting on the top of the world. When he wasn't learning how to
run snow plows, he was at the keyboard, ready to plunge into a
season of solitude and songwriting. Perfectly prepared to
realize this dream of the wild, where it would get so silent he
could hear the snow fall, he hit a solid wall of writer's block.
It remained unbroken for months until the eventual emergence of
"Loose Ends," a psychologically dark song that opened
the way for the others to follow. Throughout that winter the
songs for Nether Lands spilled out of him. Unlike those
that had come before, these reverberated with haunting vestiges
of the classical music he'd absorbed from his parents.
"That winter was like a marvelous dream. Once I broke
through the writer's block, I was in ecstasy. Because it was
like nothing I'd ever dreamed I could do.”
He then turned again to Nashville and to Norbert Putnam, and
the two friends produced the album in happy tandem, and created
a masterpiece. "When I made Nether Lands, I felt
that I had finally made a grown up record. That I wasn't a kid
anymore, and that I was finding my own voice as a writer."
When the road started calling him again to tour for Nether
Lands, the act of pushing a new album started to seem too
crassly commercial, too much about money and too little enough
about music. So in the face of the greatest success of his
career, he chose to make his next album completely about music,
without any commercial aspirations whatsoever. It would be an
opportunity to step away from the madness for a moment, and
create an album that celebrated the pure joy of making music. He
invited Tim Weisberg, the famous flautist who played with him on
"Give Me Some Time" from Nether Lands to make
the album a duet. With a cover photo of the two musicians
looking like brothers with matching beards and long hair, the
album was entitled Twin Sons Of Different Mothers.
The two twins had planned a grandiose orchestral piece to
close the album. They recorded the entire track only to discover
-- too late -- that the piano was out of tune with the orchestra
and had to be redone. Rather than incur that cost, Dan wrote a
quick song -- now thinking that maybe one commercial track might
not be such a bad idea -- and at the last minute, "The
Power Of Gold" was recorded and added to the album.
It became one of the biggest hits of his career, causing the
mostly instrumental Twin Sons to become a colossal hit.
Dan, who had expected it to be savagely attacked by the critics,
decided to skip the bloodbath by jetting off to Europe with
friends prior to its release. In Switzerland, he was
flabbergasted to receive an excited call from Azoff informing
him that the album had gone Top 20.
Here he was, consciously trying not to make a blockbuster,
and it went through the roof. Figuring there was no sense in
fighting it, he returned to the States, and went into the studio
immediately to work on songs for his next album, Phoenix.
He didn't stop recording for many years. So jazzed was he by the
unintentional success of Twin Sons that he set off on a
non-stop procession of writing songs, recording, and touring.
Like Bob Dylan, rather than write only enough for one album,
he'd simply write and record constantly, until there were enough
songs to pick and choose from for a full album. From Boulder to
Sausalito to Hollywood and beyond, he'd touch down and cut some
tracks. In this way, many of his greatest songs were created,
such as the gorgeous ballad "Longer" from Phoenix.
Though the albums that emerged from this hurricane were great
ones, the process left him with little energy to devote to his
personal life. Reflective of his need for simplification, he
embarked on a solo tour, in which he'd open the show at a grand
piano, playing the ethereal "Nether Lands". In 1979 he
brought this show to Carnegie Hall in New York, which was one of
the proudest moments of his life. His parents were in
attendance, allowing him to finally prove to his father, as if
there were still any questions about it, that he, too, was a
“legitimate musician." The leader of the band had only
been to the historic hall once before many decades earlier, to
see Arturo Toscanini conduct the New York Philharmonic. It was a
night that both father and son never forgot.
On New Year's Eve 1980, Dan sat in his Colorado home
sequencing the songs for his next album. But no matter what
order he'd try, he knew something still seemed to be missing. So
in a move he knew could be construed as professional suicide, he
decided he had more to say, and told Irving he was going back to
work. The new record, he announced, would have to be a double
album.
The record company, hungry for a new product, was predictably
furious about this. "Same Old Lang Syne" had already
been released and people around the world were screaming for a
new record. Even so, Azoff supported him wholeheartedly, and
informed the company that they'd simply have to wait.
Dan spent six more months working, and the songs that emerged
were astounding, including "Ghosts" and "The
Reach". Again, it was a case of doing what he needed to do
for the music -- as with Twin Sons -- that led him to the
greatest success of his life, The Innocent Age.
As his twenties came to an end, the album marked the closing
of one chapter, and the opening of another. It also afforded him
the opportunity to fulfill some musical fantasies, such as
recording with musical heroes who were his inspiration during
the river years, such as Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris and Chris
Hillman, all of whom show up on The Innocent Age. Another
fantasy fulfilled was the formation of a new band, the kind of
group that prior to this level of success he could realize only
in the studio, with Russ Kunkel planted firmly behind the drums.
Released in the fall of 1981, The Innocent Age became
an unprecedented success for a double album, which are often too
expensive to become hits. This was a big exception, generating
not one but four Top 20 hits in all -- including "Same Old
Lang Syne", "Run For The Roses", written for the
Kentucky Derby, "Hard To Say", and the touching
tribute to his father, "Leader Of The Band". "I
still think most highly of that album," he said.
"Making it was certainly one of the high water marks of my
life."
With multiple radio hits in constant rotation around the
globe, Dan and the band sold out 20,000 seat arenas all across
America. As he put it, "It was the big time. Big time rock
and roll. That was really the peak. You couldn't get much bigger
than that, really. It was amazing." Though he'd already
reached some lofty professional heights, he felt himself being
pushed even higher. He thought to himself, "Now the
hurricane begins in earnest."
After rolling with the band for months on the road promoting The
Innocent Age, he returned once again to the tranquility of
his newly constructed ranch to ponder his next move. Since that
album presented the closing of an emotional chapter in his life,
he decided to explore new avenues of lyrical expression. Like
Joni Mitchell during her Hissing Of Summer Lawns period,
he abandoned introspection to write about the world around him.
And like Joni, he was critically attacked for it. Though the
resulting album, Windows And Walls, featured the hit
single "Language Of Love", the marvelously cinematic
"Tucson, Arizona" and other great songs, the critics
tore into it with a vengeance they reserve only for those who
have been to the very top of the mountain. And as they knew, Dan
Fogelberg lived at the top of the mountain.
During the many hours spent in his truck driving back and
forth between Boulder and the ranch he was building, he'd been
listening to a lot of bluegrass tapes, feeding his desire to
play some roots music again. After sitting in with Chris
Hillman's acoustic band at the 1984 Telluride Bluegrass
festival, he decided to make a record that, like Twin Sons,
was meant to be a step outside of the spotlight to enjoy the
simple pleasure of playing great music with great musicians.
He jotted down a new dream list of his favorite acoustic
pickers, and each one agreed to be involved: famed guitarist Doc
Watson, Jerry Douglas on dobro, mandolinist David Grisman, Herb
Petersen on banjo, and Chris Hillman, Vince Gill, and Ricky
Scaggs singing harmony. The resulting album, High Country
Snows, joined Jerry Garcia's Old And In The Way to
become one of the best-selling bluegrass albums of all time.
The recording sessions were pure fun, the most enjoyable
record-making experience he'd known since those early days in
Nashville with Norbert. "I put that album on and I really
dig it. I put it on and say, 'Man -- listen to these guys!
There's a great spirit that's in those grooves.' Some of my
others are almost too perfect. As Roy Acuff said, 'Every time
you do it, you lose a little something.' And on that album, we
lost nothing. It was so fast and easy. They were such great
players that it didn't take long, you'd just let them go and
that was it." During 1985 he toured with Chris Hillman's
band to support the album, a group that eventually evolved into
the Desert Rose Band.
Though his professional life was in great shape, his private
life was darkened by the recent breakup of his first marriage.
Drummer Joe Vitale said to him, "God, spare me, don't go
home and write the ultimate divorce album." Dan promised
that he wouldn't, and then proceeded to do just that, spilling
all of his pain into the songs that provided the foundation for
his Exiles album. He also let off a lot of steam by
playing little Colorado bars in a good time rock and roll band
he formed with Vitale called Frankie and The Aliens. Having
shaved off his famous beard, he went virtually unrecognized,
allowing him to reconnect with the spirit of pure anonymous fun
he knew when first playing rock and roll in Peoria.
It also got his guitar chops into better shape than ever, as
preserved in the intensity of his guitar work on Exiles,
released in 1987. His singing, rawer than ever and bordering on
pure soul, signaled that he'd been through tough times.
"That's blood on the tracks, there. You can feel the pain
and the anger in that album as much as you can feel the joy in High
Country Snows."
Though his next two albums, The Wild Places and River
Of Souls, were released as separate discs, he conceived them
more as a double album, connected by the theme of the
environment and inspired by world music. They are songs informed
by his horrified awareness of the Reagan administration's
betrayal of the environment. Though he'd been active in
political issues throughout his career, he'd never devoted an
entire album addressing these topics. Like many of his friends
and contemporaries, songwriters such as Jackson Browne and Bruce
Cockburn, he risked the possibility of alienating portions of
his audience, as well as writing songs more topical than
timeless. But his conscience would not allow him to ignore the
direction the world was heading in.
"I felt there was no way we could save this planet
unless we learned to love it. So these songs were about my love
for nature." He was living now at the ranch through most of
the year, and spending his summers in an old sea-captain's house
he purchased on an island off of Maine. The Wild Places
was the first album in this cycle, released in 1990, with songs
about his time on the ocean, where he spends long days sailing
on a wooden yawl called "The Serenade", and songs
about the sweetness of his solitude in Colorado.
The Wild Places and River Of Souls were the
first albums he recorded at his newly completed home studio,
which allowed him to be free from the time constraints of
commercial studios. While The Wild Places was more
collaborative in nature, on River Of Souls he played
almost all of the instruments himself, as he had back in Pekin
making Captured Angel. Released in 1993, it's an album
that not only reflects the beauty of the natural world, but also
affirms his faith in a world beyond. It's a world connected to
this one by a river.
Although River Of Souls generated one hit, "Magic
Every Moment", it failed to become an instant blockbuster
as so many of his others had. But his need to explore new
territories both musical and spiritual far outweighed any
inclination to repeat past glories. "I know metaphysical
songs aren't going to sell on the radio," he said with a
laugh. Having spun so long in the hurricane, he's learned that
the only authentic test of an artist is if he can stay true to
his own vision, despite the clamor of the commercial world.
"You've got to just follow your heart and do your best
work," he said. "For better or worse, I have followed
my heart. There is no doubt in my mind or heart that everything
I've done is exactly what I intended to do."
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