THE UNPREDICTABLE DAN FOGELBERG By Alan Sculley ------------------------------------------------------------------------

WHEN Dan Fogelberg steps onto the Fox Theatre stage Friday, he'll carry some special memories of that place and his St. Louis fans.

On June 25, 1991, Fogelberg recorded his two-disc live record, "Greetings From the West," at the Fox. Fogelberg remembers it as an exciting, unique and stressful experience - a day and a concert unlike any other during his 20-year career.

"I have nothing but terrific memories about that night, that day," Fogelberg said. "It was probably the most difficult day of my life. I mean, it was insane, but it was so successful. What I got from it, I'm so happy with."

The whole project came together with lightning speed, Fogelberg said, noting that the idea of recording a show had been hatched only a couple of weeks before when he played in New York City near the end of his 1991 tour.

"I started thinking, boy, if I'm ever going to do a video and an album, this is the time," Fogelberg said. "I just felt the show was just what I wanted it to be, if I ever did a live recording. I liked the way it looked, I liked the band I had. I liked the material that we were doing."

His record company, Epic, agreed, but there were only a handful of shows left on the tour. The Fox was the only indoor venue left, which meant Fogelberg had only about a week to prepare for the recording, and he and the band had only one shot to make a satisfactory live record.

The day of the show was perhaps the most frenetic for Fogelberg. As producer for the record, he was involved in overseeing the sound and video recording crews and every other aspect of the concert, a job that had him hard at work from 9 a.m. right up to showtime.

"Finally I had about a half an hour to go back to the hotel and get showered, and come back and star in this damn thing, to be on stage in front of the thing," Fogelberg recalled. "So it was just an amazing day.

"I'm just so pleased and proud of that band that they gave me that show when I needed them the most," Fogelberg said, putting the event into perspective. "I'm probably proudest of that record. If someone came, you know, 20 years from now and said, well, who is this guy, you could put on `Greetings From the West' or that video, and you'd know. You'd be able to see the full range of what I do."

When he returns to the Fox on Friday, Fogelberg will find the circumstances and the format for his concert considerably different.

"The whole show is focused on acoustic music," Fogelberg said. "So I've kind of gone back and dug up some old stuff that I never would have considered doing again, which is fun. And it's a small (format). It's more or less along the unplugged type of show. It's not a huge, big production like I've done in the past. It's a little easier to get the audience involved."

Fogelberg's band includes some musical veterans - drummer Joe Vitale (Crosby, Stills & Nash and Joe Walsh), guitarist Robert McEntee (part of the "Greetings From the West" band) and Heart bassist Mark Andes, who replaces Timothy B. Schmidt, who left the tour to participate in a reunion of his former band, the Eagles.

Some of the show will be focused around Fogelberg's latest studio offering, "River of Souls," a record that finds him delving into a diverse range of world beat stylings. For instance, the song "Magic Every Moment" bounces to a festive Caribbean soca rhythm. The title song features touches of Brazilian and Peruvian styles, while "Holy Road" settles into a gospel-tinged, New Orleans groove.

"I've always been interested in differing forms of music from different places," Fogelberg said. "Even back on `The Innocent Age' (1981), there were some things that were that way, that really had different origins.

" `Nexus,' for instance, has a big African chant in the middle of that and African rhythms going on there. So it's not something new. It's something that took precedent with this particular music. I think by osmosis, too, the stuff that I've been listening to over the past five or six years probably influenced me, most notably Johnny Clegg, the South African artist, and Bruce Cockburn from Canada."

That Fogelberg would branch into a new direction with "River of Souls" shouldn't be altogether surprising. After establishing his folk-pop signature on such 1970s hit albums as "Souvenirs," "Nether Lands" and "Phoenix," Fogelberg branched out in the '80s. The album "High Country Snows" from 1985 explored bluegrass. "Exiles" was a harder rocking, electric record.

"The Wild Places" was perhaps his most politically potent album, with songs urging the preservation of the environment.

Fogelberg said the platinum success of his early albums, which produced a long string of hit singles (including such radio staples as "Same Auld Lang Syne" and "Part of the Plan"), have given him the established audience and financial security to experiment.

"What I think I was consciously doing after `The Innocent Age' and `Windows & Walls' and `Phoenix' and those types of records was say OK, I've done this. I know I can be successful doing this. But I've got to keep growing. I've got to keep changing.

"I'm sure there are a lot of people who hear the things I did, especially like the bluegrass or something, and say well that really isn't my cup of tea. But for me, I've got to keep it interesting. I think that's why I'm still able to do this as successfully as I am because people don't really know what to expect. As long as I work hard and I think the songs are good, I can kind of play with the audience a little bit. I don't think I go too far at one time. It's not like Joni Mitchell doing (the jazz album) `Mingus.' That was radical."