Dan Seals
Known as England Dan when he was collaborating with John Ford Coley as a pop act, Seals is going to be called Dixie Dan if he does much more of this kind of country pickin' and singin'. Born in Texas, Seals (brother of Jim Seals of Seals and Croft) comes naturally to his loose, intimate country sound, which has a Ricky Skaggs-like amiability. Among those helping him get back to his roots are Dobro virtuoso Jerry Douglas, happily getting more exposure than he usually does, guitarist Brent Mason, fiddler Mark O'Connor and Marie Osmond—yes, that Marie Osmond, doing a sweetly charming duet with Seals on the Paul Davis song Meet Me in Montana. Other highlights are a Seals-Bob McDill tune that turns the tables on the typical woman-left-alone-with-the-kids theme, Everything That Glitters, and Tobacco Road, which Seals renders with a lot deeper sense of its bluesy qualities than the Nashville Teens did when they had a hit with it in 1964. Seals, 37, has taken a far more circuitous route than a lot of Nashville mainstays, but he has arrived at the same place: the heart of country music. (EMI)
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