Dan Fogelberg
Nether Lands

THE REVIEW

The ashes of this unfortunate country rock musician from Illinois, who died at the age of just fifty-six due to an illness, were scattered off the coast of Maine nearly eight years ago. Inevitably, the memory of him in our parts, already rather faint at the time of his full musical activity, is now almost completely faded. I therefore take it upon myself to try and bring Dan back into contemporary consideration, by writing a few lines about one of his many works, specifically his fourth career album released in 1977.

This is the album that introduced me to this artist: all thanks to an American girl I came into contact with while she was staying in Italy, hosted by friends. Seeing me happily engaged with Eagles, Crosby Stills and Nash, Poco, and company when she listened to my music programs that I held at a couple of private radios or when she came to a certain place on Saturday nights where I used to play some records, one evening she shot the following phrase at me: "In my opinion, the best country rocker is Dan Fogelberg, you've got to listen to him!" Minchia! Who the heck was this Fogelberg? Never heard of him... fortunately, the radio had one of his albums, which was this one: untouched, ignored, with the vinyl still stuck to the inner sleeve. I took it home and gave it quite a few delightful listens, before placing it back on the shelf from where I had taken it.

Fogelberg played the acoustic guitar, piano, and electric guitar in order of preference, in addition to singing with an emotional and romantic voice, which could be quite cloying in the long run. A couple of years before the release of this album, he considered, and then declined, the spot in the Eagles left vacant by the defector Bernie Leadon, an opportunity finally seized by the more spirited Joe Walsh. Specifically for this work, he allows his producer Norbert Putnam to do quite a bit, who, during the symphonic phase, stuffs, through the specialist arranger David Campbell, two or three ballads with an impressive orchestral accompaniment.

This is the case with the titular opening of the album, at the highest levels of pomp and glory, with no expense spared regarding timpani rolls and massive movements of air from brass and woodwinds. Much more typical, and in line with the album's owner, is the subsequent "Once Upon a Time," marked by the beautiful work on the acoustic guitar and the rich harmonies provided by an excellent vocal trio: Fogelberg himself + Don Henley of the Eagles + John David Souther, who is also part of the Eagles' entourage.

Other excellent country rock songs are "Promises Made," with its rolling and dense rhythm thanks to exquisite embroidery of electric guitar harmonics, and then the hyper-romantic and dreamy (as the title demands) "Scarecrow’s Dream," the somber "Loose Ends," the rocking and polemical finale "False Faces" which also features his friend guitarist Joe Walsh at work, who had previously produced his first successful album “Souvenirs.”

"Nether Lands" is a cohesive work, with almost no qualitative divergence between the various tracks that compose it, decidedly rich in instrumentation and arranged very "densely," in practice the most grandiloquent and emphatic work of our artist. Daniel Grayling Fogelberg was a humble, sensitive, and generous artist... it's always a pleasure to take one of his works off the shelf and listen to it again. In my house, this work is one of his most played, along with the masterpiece "The Innocent Age" and the equally valid and already mentioned “Souvenirs.”