Mellow soft rock was a thing back in the mid-70s, and a couple of guys named England Dan & John Ford Coley were two of its prime practitioners. Case in point is today’s classic song of the day, “Nights Are Forever Without You.” Released in October of 1976, when I was a freshman in college at good ol’ Indiana University (go Hoosiers!), this single went all the way to #10 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box Top 100, and #6 on Billboard’s Easy Listening chart.
“Nights Are Forever Without You” was written by Parker McGee, a Mississippi-born songwriter who had migrated to Nashville. He also wrote the duo’s first big hit, “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight.”
England Dan was Dan Seals, brother of Jim Seals of Seals & Crofts fame. John Ford Coley was… well, he was John Ford Coley. Dan and John were friends and classmates at W.W. Samuell High School in Dallas and started playing together in various local bands. They eventually joined together as a duo and got their first record contract with A&M Records in 1970.
A&M dropped them after a couple of unsuccessful albums but then Big Tree Records (a subsidiary of Atlantic Records) snapped them up and they started having some pretty decent hits. Their biggest singles included “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight,” “It’s Sad to Belong,” “We’ll Never Have to Say Goodbye Again,” “Love is the Answer,” and, of course, “Nights Are Forever Without You.”
England Dan & John Ford Coley split as a musical duo in 1980; Dan Seals went on to a successful career in country music, while John Coley also stayed in the music business, but with less success. Dan passed away in 2009, age 61, while John is still with us at 77 years of age.
For today’s daily bonus video of the day, here’s England Dan & John Ford Coley performing “Nights Are Forever Without You” on some television show back in 1976. It’s perfectly ’70s.
