Atlanta Journal-Constitution - October 6, 2000

Dan Fogelberg

He hasn't had much press since Jimmy Carter was in the White House or a hit single since 1981's sweetly romantic album, "The Innocent Age."

But soft-rock folkie Dan Fogelberg has built a steady following over the years with little more than his plaintive tenor, acoustic guitar and sensitive songs of love (lost and found). The 49-year-old Coloradan bristles at suggestions that he's a throwback to the 1970s, when introspective singer-songwriters ruled the FM dial. Yet he clearly relishes being out of step with today's crop of disposable hitmakers.

"What's on the radio these days is fluff entertainment for teens," says Fogelberg, calling from a tour stop in Naples, Fla. "I write for a different audience, for my generation. We had our time and they have theirs. Now, I think ours may have been more substantive; today's music has no real substance. . . . You can't tell one artist from the next."

Fogelberg pulls into Chastain Park Amphitheatre on Saturday Oct. 7 for a one-man show built largely around the '70s acoustic hits that earned him seven platinum-selling albums. Accompanying himself on piano and guitar, the Peoria, Ill., native will run through such chestnuts as "Longer" and "Leader of the Band," but will also throw in some new material developed since his last Atlanta performance in 1998.

Fogelberg insists the current tour is not part of a comeback of any kind --- "The touring has never really stopped," he says, without a hint of defensiveness. But when the tour ends this month, he will begin recording his first new album of acoustic ballads since the 1970s --- marking a return to his roots, after forays into bluegrass, country and even world-beat music in the 1980s and 1990s.

This summer, he also released a concert album --- "Live: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed and Some Blues" --- featuring such acoustic classics as "Looking for a Lady," and covers of George Harrison's "Here Comes the Sun" (recorded in Atlanta) and Blind Willie McTell's classic "Statesboro Blues."

We talked with Fogelberg about what's old, new and borrowed.

Q: After nearly 30 years, does it still matter to you what the critics say?

A: Not terribly, no. You do your music and don't worry about all that. I don't feel like I should lower what I do to appease the pop music world.

Q: On your tours, you do a coffeehouse-style show --- that guy-and-a-guitar thing that was more popular in the '70s. It seems pretty different from what's on the radio these days.

A: Well, it was an incredibly innovative time, the '60s and '70s. It was really a remarkable golden era for music. Now all you hear is a copy of a copy of a copy. . . . In the '60s and '70s there was so much individuality to the music. There wasn't a second Janis (Joplin), or Joni (Mitchell) or Bruce (Springsteen). That's what's different today. I can't tell Christina Aguilera from Britney Spears, can you?

Q: Your current show is more of a greatest-hits live performance than a showcase for new songs. How come?

A: I'm doing what I'm known for. Most people know those songs, and I want to play what people want to hear. It's not like Neil Young, who gets out there and does what he wants to do and it's like, y'know, (forget about) 'em. The people who come to the shows, they paid a lot of money to come, and had to drive a good way to get there, so I want to play the songs they came to hear.