Gerry Beckley Talks Now and Then with Richard Boch
The America co-founder talks new songs, old friendships, and what keeps him writing after more than five decades of music.
Knowing someone for over fifty years without ever having met is strange but not unusual. Music was the introduction and it remains the voice I’m hearing today. Gerry Beckley, a founding member of the band America, is that voice—a voice that rings as true today as it did the first time I heard it. Together with Beckley’s wildly popular “Sister Golden Hair” from America’s 1975 album, Hearts, the band’s 1972 radio hit, “Horse With No Name,” left an indelible mark on the collective consciousness of the 1970s. They were both of a time and place, but by no means lost in the past—forever providing context and legacy. To call or refer to those songs as mega-hits or Billboard Number Ones doesn’t begin to describe what they represent in terms of connecting past to present, let alone their standing in the realm of Pop Culture. Regardless of our age or who we are, we know those songs—the lyrics and the music are part of us—whether we realize it or not.
Gerry Beckley’s new thirteen-song collection Merciful on Blue Elan Records presents us with a sound both familiar and new. Beckley’s vocal can be both startling and gentle, bringing to mind that call of youth we’ve come to either recognize or re-discover. What Merciful offers us is a future vision and a sense of mortality gleaned not only from Beckley’s decades of recording and touring with the multi-platinum America, but also from his time as a solo artist. It’s a remarkable career informed by fifty-plus years of songwriting that continues to follow a forward path. The songs from Merciful, including the title track, ring with a deep yet effortless truth. Even the cover version of The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” seems more a sad, sweet dream than a telling on oneself. Songs like “Monster,” “75” and “Big Rain” have an immediacy that allows for a glance back and a wonder of what’s next. That’s what music does.
Gerry Beckley’s ability to bring us the sound and spirit of now and then, not only on Merciful but through an entire catalogue of songs, seems to be a revelation of time remembered, yet with a self-awareness that continues to find itself of the moment.
Let’s see what he thinks about all that.
Richard Boch: Hi Gerry, before we get into the here and now, tell me your version of putting the band America together. You were basically three kids in 1970, and through a combination of talent and motivation, the band had a sound. By 1972 you had the massive hit “Horse With No Name,” a song that everyone still knows to this day. Did you have a vision when you first started out or was it still just a dream in those days?
Gerry Beckley: Well, I think those two can be connected. We had entered the era of singer-songwriters—Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Sweet Baby James (Taylor) and everyone was picking up acoustic guitars. With the guitars—singing harmonies. So, we got rid of our electric gear and started writing on acoustic guitars and singing to each other. We had what they call a “blend” and the vocals sounded lovely together. I don’t want to say we didn’t have to work on it, but it got going very quickly. We liked what we heard—we played it for people—they loved it. We were signed within a year to Warner Brothers.
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RB: Listening to Merciful, your new collection of songs, what stands out to me is not just the sound which is both familiar and new, but your knowledge and understanding of the connection between music and storytelling. It’s the gift of a great songwriter. Let’s step back again for a moment and tell me how your early compositions connect to Merciful.
GB: I studied the “masters”—I mean that’s what I listened to as a child. My mother was a classical fanatic, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, for example. She also loved showtunes—you know, West Side Story, The Sound of Music, Oliver! As I was studying what makes a good song, a catchy song—even before listening to The Beatles and The Beach Boys, which was a turning point for everyone. I think (at that time) I was listening to and absorbing what was eventually going to steer my sound. I got very lucky early on. One of the first songs I ever wrote, “I Need You,” became a big hit for America. I wish I could write one of those every year—but like photographers who might shoot a thousand frames to get two great shots—or like writing a hundred songs to get, you know, that one. So, I like to think that, in a sense, I’ve learned my craft, and Merciful has a direct core connection to those earliest days of studying and songwriting.
RB: Going back to the very early 1970s, it appears that all three of the members of America shared the songwriting spotlight. By 1972, after a bit of tweaking and reconfiguring, the song “Horse With No Name” blew everyone away while your song “Sister Golden Hair” became a massive Billboard Number One hit in 1975. You’re also the one with an incredibly prolific solo career—eleven-song collections since the mid-1990s, including this latest 2026 release Merciful on Blue Elan Records.
Whether you’re looking back or being present in the here and now, did you ever think or even dream that being an artist writing and singing new songs would always be who you are?
GB: It’s very easy to guess when you’re younger—but there’s a great quote, a Mick Jagger quote that went something like, “I can’t really be singing ‘Satisfaction’ when I’m 40.” But if he’d really looked at the time at Little Richard and Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis banging (the keys), they didn’t stop. So, had we given it a little thought, maybe thinking, oh, with a little luck this could go on? I mean, a lot of times people don’t have that option—there’s just no audience, you can’t just go play—you need a following and the dominoes fell in our favor.
You know, most careers are a couple years at best, maybe three or four, a couple of big albums—there’s an arc to them. If you build a following, you might be able to maintain a live audience and continue to perform—but it’s very rare to have actual new listeners all the time listening to your music. I certainly don’t delude myself into thinking fifteen-year-olds all over the world are going to start listening to Merciful.
What I’d like to think is that people spend time and listen to the album—twenty minutes a side, forty minutes of music—and come away having enjoyed the experience. I worked to make Merciful an entire listening experience.
RB: It’s a beautiful record, Gerry, I’ve listened to it a couple times already. So, recording is one thing, but reading your bio and press, I noticed that you stopped touring with America in 2023. Do you miss going out on the road with a band, singing songs that people love and being part of something larger than yourself? Are you still planning to record as a founding member of America or is being Gerry Beckley all that you and your audience needs?
GB: Dewey Bunnell (America co-founder), he’s my dearest friend of fifty-six years—sixty actually, as we met in high school. We either speak or text every day and Dewey decided he wanted to stay out (on the road) another year or two so a friend of ours with a beautiful voice came aboard to sing my songs. I had done fifty-three years, about one hundred shows a year and travel just becomes harder and harder, and it was harder (for me) to present the songs (live). We were down to about two (shows) a week because really that was about all my voice could handle. I just didn’t want these latter chapters to become a thing, like a law of diminishing returns.
Getting on a plane at 6am and flying two hundred days a year—I don’t miss that at all. To kind of prove that, well, I’m good friends with the band The Killers and they were recently in Australia where I’m living—Brandon (Flowers, the lead vocalist) asked if I would do a song with them. They were playing a twenty-thousand-seat sports arena and I thought, geez, what am I agreeing to here—I hadn’t been on stage for a year or two. We did “Sister Golden Hair” in the middle of the show—and the place went nuts, twenty thousand people and they immediately knew the intro. It couldn’t have been more of a lovely experience—the band was fantastic, they did an incredible job, and he (Brandon Flowers) is the sweetest guy. My point is, as I’m coming off stage, there was not one part of me that went, I really miss this. I mean I did it for over half a century. (Laughs)
RB: The world is surely a different place from where we all started, and there’s always going to be a that was then, this is now vibe no matter what era we’re passing through. Do you feel like you’ve been able to use lyric and song to communicate with people on a deeper level than entertainment? Is Merciful, the album and the song, a message of love, a reflection on life, or simply a next step forward?
GB: Well, first of all, that’s very well put, Richard, thank you. It is a statement that every time I do a record, I don’t just do it for the heck of it. I work hard on them. I like to think people get something from it. The power of music, as you well know, it’s just unbelievable—the ethereal nature of it. It comes through the air and it’s the most beautiful thing. I would never take an iota of that for granted—and I say to my wife, I run out of fingers so quickly when I count my blessings.
RB: Thanks Gerry, I’ve always loved the songs we’ve mentioned, and, as I said earlier in our conversation, I’ve listened to Merciful several times already. It’s truly been a pleasure and the music continues to be a gift.
GB: It’s just been an incredible journey and I’m glad that it carries on and gives you and I the chance to talk. Thank you, Richard, for your thoughts and for the questions.
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Richard Boch is the author of The Mudd Club Book and a regular contributor to Stories and his column Take A Walk.