These guys make Hawaiian shirts, thick glasses, and mismatched patterns look, well, adorable.
Gerry Beckley, full stop. Blond, bespectacled, shy smile, sweet, vulnerable singing voice. To say nothing of the pink overalls.◊
Audience-Alienating Era: Between Dan Peek leaving and the release of the Album Hourglass in the early nineties, most of the band's output moved from the folk-inspired style that had made them popular to forgettable pop.
"Muskrat Love" was originally by Willis Alan Ramsey (who called it "Muskrat Candlelight"). America's version of the song was in turn Covered Up by Captain & Tennille.
The version of "Your Move" most people have heard of is the Diana Ross cover, mainly for being the song that was sampled on that one vaporwavetrack. Not many people know it was originally an America song.
Misattributed Song: "A Horse with No Name" is commonly mistaken for a Neil Young or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young tune. Understandable, since the tune was directly influenced by Young's work. And Dewey Bunnell's voice does sort of resemble Young's. The song and Young's Signature Song "Heart of Gold" were on the charts at the same time.
"Sister Golden Hair" is often thought to be a George Harrison song, mainly because of the very Harrison-esque slide guitar. The fact that it was produced by George Martin also likely plays into this.
Sampled Up: The Epic Riff from "Ventura Highway" is most recognizable to Millennials and younger as the hook from Janet Jackson's 2001 single "Someone to Call My Lover."
Signature Song: "You Can Do Magic", with "A Horse With No Name" or "Ventura Highway" in second.
The film
Complete Monster: Captain Walter Butler is a war criminal in The American Revolution, and is unique in the sense that he is not a British soldier, but a cruel American loyalist. Despised by both sides of the war for disobeying orders and conducting massacres against his own people with a renegade army of like-minded savages, Butler allows them to torture POWs for information. Obsessed with Nancy Montague, Butler leads a raid in the vicinity of her estate to steal supplies from the Continental Army, killing several people—including Nancy's uncle—before trying to rape her. Worse is Butler's plan to destroy Fort Sacrifice, as he intends to slaughter thousands of people living in the neighboring valley, declaring "Men, women, and children, this whole pack of American wolves, little wolves grow to big ones, leave none to grow". One of the earliest examples of a Sociopathic Soldier in film, Butler's dream was to sweep his country with flame and establish his own vision of an empire upon its ashes.
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