Trending
NEW YORK (AP) -- Singer-songwriter Darrell "Dash" Crofts, who teamed with childhood friend Jim Seals for such 1970s soft-rock hits as "Summer Breeze," "Diamond Girl" and "Get Closer," has died. He was 87.
Crofts died Wednesday of heart failure at the Heart Hospital of Austin in Austin, Texas, said his daughter, Lua Crofts Faragher. She said her father had been suffering heart issues for several years and had been hospitalized for about a month.
Seals and Crofts were native Texans who had known each other since high school and played together in various groups before becoming a duo, Seals & Crofts, in the late 1960s. Blending pop, country, folk and jazz, they were part of a wave of million-selling soft-rock (or "easy listening") bands that included America, Bread and Loggins and Messina.
"Summer Breeze," "Diamond Girl" and "Get Closer" all reached the Top 10, while their other popular singles included "I'll Play for You," "Hummingbird" and "We May Never Pass This Way (Again)."
Like many bands of the era, Seals & Crofts sang of love, peace, music and the natural world. But the inspirations were rooted less in the counterculture than in the Baha'i faith, a monotheistic religion advocating global unity that they both embraced in the 1960s.
"It became a driving force in their careers and the way they lived their lives," Faragher said.
They worked Baha'i themes into their music -- "Hummingbird" is a metaphor for the Baha'i prophet Bahaullah -- distributed literature after their shows, and sometimes preached from the stage, including during a performance on "Tonight" with Johnny Carson.
"You start out writing songs like 'the leaves are green and the sky is blue and I love you and you love me' -- very simple lyrics -- but you grow into a much, much broader awareness of life, of love, and of unity," Crofts told Stereo Review in 1971. "It's really great to be able to say something real in your music."
By the early 1980s, soft-rock bands were out of fashion and Seals & Crofts had been dropped by its label, Warner Bros. They broke up for a time but continued to appear together at Baha'i gatherings, while also recording on their own. Crofts released a solo album, "Today," in 1998, and six years later reunited with Seals for "Traces." More recently, their music was revived by Faragher and Seals' cousin Brady, who toured together as Seals & Crofts 2. (Jim Seals died in 2022).