COLUMN: NIGHT BEAT:
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Dan Fogelberg gained fame singing folk-pop
songs such as "Longer," "Leader of the Band" and
"Same Old Lang Syne," but that doesn't mean he's a "weeping
willow songwriter feeding deer in the mountains," he says.
In fact, Fogelberg, who plays the House of Blues today, has partied hard with familiar faces for a long time. On Fogelberg's first wedding day in the 1970s, Jimmy Buffett crashed on Fogelberg's pool table after they got hammered. Then Fogelberg got Buffett drunk at Buffett's second wedding in 1977. Fogelberg won't even say what he's done in the company of Don Henley. "I've got
stories about the Eagles that are great, but Henley would sue (me). Maybe
the last one standing will write all our stories down someday,"
Fogelberg says. "There's no better way to make a living. I've kept my own interests pure. I think when people get bitter is when they sell out and listen to marketing and bean-counters and buckle under for the money," he says. "I've done my time honorably as a pop artist, which means not bending over for these guys."
"More and more artists of my generation said, `Screw this,' and we make more doing it ourselves," he says. "Why should you be giving 90 percent of your money to these conglomerates?" He can operate outside of the major labels more easily than most artists because his established fan base stays with him. And he puts out any album he wants, such as the one he released last year, "First Christmas Morning," a Medieval-Christmas music CD. In concert, he knows fans want to hear old hits, so he plays them. "I'm lucky; the hits that I have, I like playing," he says. But in his mind, he had to change the meaning behind "Longer." He wrote it for the first of his two ex-wives. They broke up decades ago. Now he thinks about couples in his audience who danced to "Longer" at their weddings. And he thinks about his mother. "What's wrong with that? I dedicated it one night to Mom" -- (in his hometown of Peoria, Ill.) -- "and I thought: 'Hey, that's great. She's the only woman I've loved for more than two decades.' " Fans have asked Fogelberg to sing love songs at weddings, but his asking price (he won't quote it here) always shuts them up. What was worse was the time a friend, a Los Angeles record producer, asked Fogelberg to sing at his wife's funeral. Fogelberg, bearded back then, agreed to sing her favorite song, "To the Morning," while playing guitar at her hippie funeral. "I said, 'Oh, sure.' Oh, it was horrible," he gasps with repulsion. "Everybody's crying and (stuff), and the casket's going in the ground, and you're singing. It struck me as one of the oddest things I've ever done. I remember driving home from L.A. saying, 'God, don't ever let me do that again.' " Fogelberg admits that a big reason he still tours is to subsidize snow-skiing excursions near his Colorado ranch -- where he used to raise llama and where he lives with his "lovely lady" -- and to finance solo sailing trips on a 36-foot boat near his summer house in Maine. But he also still enjoys the stage. "It's the fans that keep you going," he says. "(But) I'm not B.B. King. I'm not out there 300 days a year. God bless him, but music isn't the only part of my life." Today, he'll
perform solo on piano and guitar. The House of Blues gig gives him a
chance to play more blues and folk songs, he says. It also will be one of
his first club dates since he sang in a Beatles cover band 32 years ago. |
