Years Melt Away For Fans Of Dan Fogelberg's Old Tunes

Tuesday, July 31, 2001

By L. PIERCE CARSON
Register Staff Writer

Soft-rock folkie Dan Fogelberg built a substantial following over the years with little more than plaintive tenor, acoustic guitar and perceptive songs of love, lost and found, environmental sensitivity and his own creative restlessness.

The Colorado singer/songwriter -- who turns 50 next week -- has been recording and performing steadily since his career-making debut hit, "Part of the Plan," was first released in 1974.

The years melted away last Saturday evening when he took to the concert stage at the Robert Mondavi Winery to offer a one-man show built largely around the acoustic hits of the 1970s and 1980s that earned him seven platinum-selling albums.

It proved a show that attracted diehard fans from all over the state, fans who came to hear the artist's timeless hits, to enjoy the deeply personal songs this unique minstrel has given them for nearly three decades.

With a regard that at times bordered on reverential, the audience hung on every word, every note of songs with which they obviously identified. There was little concern that ticket prices for concerts are climbing into the stratosphere (due to artists' fiscal demands) -- Fogelberg ducats went for $70 per -- nor that the artist is no longer turning out new material matching the artistic intensity of his earlier chart-topping hits.

"I haven't written a lot in the last few years, and I don't have an explanation for that," the entertainer admitted in an interview. "I don't feel the same urgency, to be honest with you, after 25 to 30 years of this it's like -- (A) How much more is there to say? and (B) Is this the same passion I had when I was 20? I doubt it. I love music but the thought of sitting down and grinding out songs doesn't appeal to me like it used to."

Nevertheless, it's patently clear that Fogelberg still enjoys live performance. The final concert of a 12-city tour of the West and Midwest, Saturday night's show proved a generous reminiscence under a waxing gibbous moon.

For well over 90 minutes, Fogelberg had fun -- singing as well as playing both piano and guitar. The concert was loaded with material from the 1980s, including a quartet of hits from the landmark 1980 double LP, "The Innocent Age."

Nattily attired in black sport coat, jeans and sandals, Fogelberg's guitar work proved to be the evening's artistic high points. It was generously offered with incredible picking on the opening number, "Nexus," the spectacular slide guitar tribute to late Delta bluesman John Lee Hooker and a rockin' country blues salute to Chet Atkins, another American treasure who passed away this year.

It was a very mellow evening, with material that ranged from the gospely "Don't Lose Heart," with its syrupy lyric, to a Chopinesque keyboard souvenir, "Paris Nocturne." A lot of the hits were there as well -- "Same Old Lang Syne," "Leader of the Band," "Make Love Stay," "Hard To Say" and "Longer."

Even though "Longer" remains one his most requested songs some 22 years after its release, Fogelberg is still not sure what all the fuss is about. "I don't dislike the song, I just think I have written so much better," he said in an interview last year. "It seems just like a pretty little piece of pulp to play at weddings...great, hooray."

But the artist bows to his fans, performing the songs they want to hear, songs that have taken them through dating, marriage (and quite possibly, like the artist himself, divorce), good times, down times.

As he reaches an important milestone in his life in the next few days, Dan Fogelberg can take heart in the fact that he's made an impact in American music annals. And he's provided us with a considerable legacy.