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"An American Band, The America Story"
The book starts at the beginning, a rags to riches story of 3 Air Force Brats who eventually met in London, England at the height of the "American Invasion" of music. Courted by every Record Label in town, the band chose to sign with Warner Bros. Records and the rest as they say is History.
With the release of their acoustic and vocal harmony masterpiece, "A Horse With No Name", the band was catapulted to the top of the music charts worldwide. Their self-titled debut album containing the forementioned single reached the #1 spot on Music Charts around the world.
The book is an insider's look at the opulent and sometimes sleazy world of Rock and Roll during the Golden Years of the 70's. Dan's depiction of meeting the A-List Celebrities of the day, including Rod Stewart, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, CSNY, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne as well as Movie Stars Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty among others is a compelling read.
With feedback such as "Couldn't put it down till I was finished" and "Now reading it for the 3rd time" are typical of the comments the book has engendered.
Legendary Managers David Geffen and Elliot Roberts helped guide them and the soon enlisted the talents of Sir George Martin, known for his work with the Beatles. Sir George produced 5 of the 7 albums the group recorded for Warner Brothers and was instrumental in keeping them at the top of the charts, album after album.
The book also chronicles the painful breakup of the band as Dan Peek left to pursue a solo career which resulted in a groundbreaking CCM album, "All Things Are Possible" which garnered a Grammy nomination.
With the release of their acoustic and vocal harmony masterpiece, "A Horse With No Name", the band was catapulted to the top of the music charts worldwide. Their self-titled debut album containing the forementioned single reached the #1 spot on Music Charts around the world.
The book is an insider's look at the opulent and sometimes sleazy world of Rock and Roll during the Golden Years of the 70's. Dan's depiction of meeting the A-List Celebrities of the day, including Rod Stewart, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, CSNY, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne as well as Movie Stars Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty among others is a compelling read.
With feedback such as "Couldn't put it down till I was finished" and "Now reading it for the 3rd time" are typical of the comments the book has engendered.
Legendary Managers David Geffen and Elliot Roberts helped guide them and the soon enlisted the talents of Sir George Martin, known for his work with the Beatles. Sir George produced 5 of the 7 albums the group recorded for Warner Brothers and was instrumental in keeping them at the top of the charts, album after album.
The book also chronicles the painful breakup of the band as Dan Peek left to pursue a solo career which resulted in a groundbreaking CCM album, "All Things Are Possible" which garnered a Grammy nomination.
266 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 15, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 4, 2021
The book gives great insight on what the rock and roll life was like with quick stardom and money comes temptation. Dan Peek of the group tells good stories and gives the reader access to the 70’s era of classic rock. I found it interesting on what drove the writing of several hits, not just by America, but by other bands like the Eagles. Then how Dan Peek found his purpose and faith and gave it all up.
January 27, 2025
Compelling. Peek’s reflections are at times bizarre but honest and so vivid. Great read.
February 4, 2023
Great Read
An interesting and well written book. Full of imagery and so English it hurts. Dan must've really soaked up England while he lived here, his phrasing and terminology are as English as you can get. I'm sad he felt so disconnected for so many years, that must've been difficult.
All in all its a vivid recollection of Dan Peek's journey. I get the impression Gerry Buckley is not his favourite person and probably never was. He clearly has more in common with Dewey. He balances criticising the others by putting forward his own failings, it doesn't come across as a piece of self obsession and is well rounded.
Certainly a most enjoyable read. I wonder if Dan ever was truly happy, I sense a troubled spirit that would've continued being troubled until his death despite his new found Christianity.
Speaking as a child who was perpetually sick too, I get Dan. I understand his troubled life was connected with childhood trauma. It's tough to get through to being "normal" when you don't know what normal is!
Read it. It's great!
An interesting and well written book. Full of imagery and so English it hurts. Dan must've really soaked up England while he lived here, his phrasing and terminology are as English as you can get. I'm sad he felt so disconnected for so many years, that must've been difficult.
All in all its a vivid recollection of Dan Peek's journey. I get the impression Gerry Buckley is not his favourite person and probably never was. He clearly has more in common with Dewey. He balances criticising the others by putting forward his own failings, it doesn't come across as a piece of self obsession and is well rounded.
Certainly a most enjoyable read. I wonder if Dan ever was truly happy, I sense a troubled spirit that would've continued being troubled until his death despite his new found Christianity.
Speaking as a child who was perpetually sick too, I get Dan. I understand his troubled life was connected with childhood trauma. It's tough to get through to being "normal" when you don't know what normal is!
Read it. It's great!
December 3, 2018
A Good Read
Being a fan of "America" since their first hit single and album, back in the 70's. I was pleased to find this book while browsing "Kindle". It is an interesting and engaging memoir detailing their emergence in the UK to become one of this most iconic bands of that decade. Despite their wonderful catalogue of music, the narrative also depicts the troubles endured through success, personal ambitions, fame, and fortune., which is a common theme of other biographies I have read of people achieving status in the music and entertainment business. Success can be a difficult achievement to manage.
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to read this book.
Finally I must profess that I was sad to hear of Dan's passing in 2011.
Being a fan of "America" since their first hit single and album, back in the 70's. I was pleased to find this book while browsing "Kindle". It is an interesting and engaging memoir detailing their emergence in the UK to become one of this most iconic bands of that decade. Despite their wonderful catalogue of music, the narrative also depicts the troubles endured through success, personal ambitions, fame, and fortune., which is a common theme of other biographies I have read of people achieving status in the music and entertainment business. Success can be a difficult achievement to manage.
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to read this book.
Finally I must profess that I was sad to hear of Dan's passing in 2011.
May 8, 2026
WILDLY Uneven.
Dan Peek’s autobiography is a wild ride - both in the story and in its presentation. Some of the best chapters of the book concerned his childhood as the son of a career Air Force officer and his experiences of being shuffled to numerous bases in the United States and abroad, including Pakistan, Japan and England. Those chapters were well-written, engaging, and chronologically coherent. Those chapters could have been expanded into a book that would have stood alone.
It was, of course, in England where Peek and fellow Air Force brats Gerry Buckley and Dewey Bunnell formed the band “America.” At that point, the story goes off the tracks, then back on the tracks, then off the tracks, then back on the tracks...you get the idea. Some of the chapters are interesting and engaging; others are incoherent and bizarre. Chronology becomes scrambled. The story of Peek’s conversion/rededication (it’s hard to tell which it is) is told twice in the span of a few pages. At one point, long after detailing his breakup with the other two members of the band, he tells several stories about disastrous concerts they played together. He spends a chapter waxing eloquent about his Malibu home that eventually was burned in a Santa Ana wind-fueled wildfire, and then later on in the narrative he speaks of buying it. Narrative gets blurry (did Peek quit the band, or did the other two force him out of the band because of his newfound faith, or was he planning to quit before they forced him out, or did he give notice and they forced him out prematurely?). Memories are foggy. Of course, by Peek’s own admission, he spent much of those years in a drug-and-alcohol haze.
The book was self-published (Xulon Press), and Peek obviously has some talent as a writer, but he desperately needed a professional editor to rein in his flights of memory and fancy, not to mention a proofreader. There are constant apostrophes that aren’t needed, and quote marks on the inside of periods. In one bizarre chapter that interrupts the narrative flow (whatever narrative flow there was by that point), his brother Tom reveals that he is the editor, but that he had to labor under Dan’s injunction not to change a word. One would wish that Peek had taken the manuscript to an actual publisher. I suspect they would have seen the manuscript’s potential, assigned a top-notch editor to it, and the result would have been a much better book.
There are some fascinating stories about the band America. Apparently, Gerry Buckley always considered himself the “star” of the band, and the other two for much of their partnership worked together to try to keep his ego in check. Buckley and Peek clashed quite a bit, with Bunnell in the middle. One particularly ugly account concerns Peek’s wedding. Buckley, an avid photographer, offered to photograph the wedding as a gift to the couple. After snapping hundreds of pictures, he then revealed at the end of the day that there was no film in the camera. As a result, he and his wife Catherine only had one Polaroid picture of their wedding. Buckley also had a bad habit of living large on the group’s money. When he insisted on his own private plane, or the presidential suite at the hotel, or a chauffer-driven limousine for himself alone, it came out of all three men’s profits. He even bought a house by leveraging a loan against the whole group’s future earnings. Eventually, for reasons not made clear, Dewey switched sides, and Peek, as he says, became the whipping boy.
Peek’s after-America Christian music career got short treatment, but it was interesting that after Bunnell and Buckley’s irritation over his Christianity (they liked him better, it seems, as a drug addict and drunk), the last time the three recorded together was on one of his three Christian albums. I would have liked to know why Peek left the Christian music industry, but on that, he is silent.
Some of Peek’s stories during that period of his life were interesting from a Christian perspective. He speaks of forgiveness. He tells of relapses in his substance abuse recovery. He tells of the apparent angelic rescue of his family during the wildfire that destroyed his home.
The book was written in 2004, and Peek died in 2011. During those years, after losing his Malibu home, he and his wife apparently moved to the Caribbean, where he tried to reinvent himself as a Jimmy Buffett-style island musician. Whoever owns the book might be wise to include an epilogue about those years in future editions.
Overall, a great story not particularly told well, but still worth the read. 2.5 stars, rounded up to 3.
Dan Peek’s autobiography is a wild ride - both in the story and in its presentation. Some of the best chapters of the book concerned his childhood as the son of a career Air Force officer and his experiences of being shuffled to numerous bases in the United States and abroad, including Pakistan, Japan and England. Those chapters were well-written, engaging, and chronologically coherent. Those chapters could have been expanded into a book that would have stood alone.
It was, of course, in England where Peek and fellow Air Force brats Gerry Buckley and Dewey Bunnell formed the band “America.” At that point, the story goes off the tracks, then back on the tracks, then off the tracks, then back on the tracks...you get the idea. Some of the chapters are interesting and engaging; others are incoherent and bizarre. Chronology becomes scrambled. The story of Peek’s conversion/rededication (it’s hard to tell which it is) is told twice in the span of a few pages. At one point, long after detailing his breakup with the other two members of the band, he tells several stories about disastrous concerts they played together. He spends a chapter waxing eloquent about his Malibu home that eventually was burned in a Santa Ana wind-fueled wildfire, and then later on in the narrative he speaks of buying it. Narrative gets blurry (did Peek quit the band, or did the other two force him out of the band because of his newfound faith, or was he planning to quit before they forced him out, or did he give notice and they forced him out prematurely?). Memories are foggy. Of course, by Peek’s own admission, he spent much of those years in a drug-and-alcohol haze.
The book was self-published (Xulon Press), and Peek obviously has some talent as a writer, but he desperately needed a professional editor to rein in his flights of memory and fancy, not to mention a proofreader. There are constant apostrophes that aren’t needed, and quote marks on the inside of periods. In one bizarre chapter that interrupts the narrative flow (whatever narrative flow there was by that point), his brother Tom reveals that he is the editor, but that he had to labor under Dan’s injunction not to change a word. One would wish that Peek had taken the manuscript to an actual publisher. I suspect they would have seen the manuscript’s potential, assigned a top-notch editor to it, and the result would have been a much better book.
There are some fascinating stories about the band America. Apparently, Gerry Buckley always considered himself the “star” of the band, and the other two for much of their partnership worked together to try to keep his ego in check. Buckley and Peek clashed quite a bit, with Bunnell in the middle. One particularly ugly account concerns Peek’s wedding. Buckley, an avid photographer, offered to photograph the wedding as a gift to the couple. After snapping hundreds of pictures, he then revealed at the end of the day that there was no film in the camera. As a result, he and his wife Catherine only had one Polaroid picture of their wedding. Buckley also had a bad habit of living large on the group’s money. When he insisted on his own private plane, or the presidential suite at the hotel, or a chauffer-driven limousine for himself alone, it came out of all three men’s profits. He even bought a house by leveraging a loan against the whole group’s future earnings. Eventually, for reasons not made clear, Dewey switched sides, and Peek, as he says, became the whipping boy.
Peek’s after-America Christian music career got short treatment, but it was interesting that after Bunnell and Buckley’s irritation over his Christianity (they liked him better, it seems, as a drug addict and drunk), the last time the three recorded together was on one of his three Christian albums. I would have liked to know why Peek left the Christian music industry, but on that, he is silent.
Some of Peek’s stories during that period of his life were interesting from a Christian perspective. He speaks of forgiveness. He tells of relapses in his substance abuse recovery. He tells of the apparent angelic rescue of his family during the wildfire that destroyed his home.
The book was written in 2004, and Peek died in 2011. During those years, after losing his Malibu home, he and his wife apparently moved to the Caribbean, where he tried to reinvent himself as a Jimmy Buffett-style island musician. Whoever owns the book might be wise to include an epilogue about those years in future editions.
Overall, a great story not particularly told well, but still worth the read. 2.5 stars, rounded up to 3.
April 6, 2020
Thumbs up
Good read. I enjoyed Dan Peeks memoir and have a better idea what happened to a band that I grew up with. Their debut album and a few of their subsequent singles were part of the soundtrack to my adolescence.
Good read. I enjoyed Dan Peeks memoir and have a better idea what happened to a band that I grew up with. Their debut album and a few of their subsequent singles were part of the soundtrack to my adolescence.
July 13, 2024
Poorly written, but very interesting.
It seemed like the author was just rambling, pouring his memories into a tape recorder to be transcribed by someone else into this book. But if you love the band, America, you can plow through the poor writing and enjoy the band’s story.
It seemed like the author was just rambling, pouring his memories into a tape recorder to be transcribed by someone else into this book. But if you love the band, America, you can plow through the poor writing and enjoy the band’s story.
June 16, 2020
Easy read, but a little disconnected toward the end
December 21, 2025
Felt real.
Just saw them in concert, just one member still performing, but loved it.
Just saw them in concert, just one member still performing, but loved it.
July 30, 2022
Skip this book.
America was the band I grew up. Hearing the early hits as a kid of the 70’s. The three musketeers broke up by the time of the 1980’s. I remember You Can Do Magic with Beckley and Bunnell as a teen of the 80’s. I’ve loved all of their music past and present.
Mr. Peek’s biography of the band deals with the price of fame, drugs, interpersonal relationships in the band, his marriage and faith.
A lot of the book was the airing of dirty laundry between himself and Gerry, his drug use, wife, and new found faith.You can read better articles about the band on the internet. The book was a personal view that was very biased. It also needed a better editor to give the author some guidelines. What he made public was personal in the dynamics of the band. I think by the time the band became a duo and this book came out, the chances of a reunion were zero.
Luckily for fans we still have America still touring.
We also have Mr. Peek’s music and talent from those formative years as well. I prefer to remember him that way.
America was the band I grew up. Hearing the early hits as a kid of the 70’s. The three musketeers broke up by the time of the 1980’s. I remember You Can Do Magic with Beckley and Bunnell as a teen of the 80’s. I’ve loved all of their music past and present.
Mr. Peek’s biography of the band deals with the price of fame, drugs, interpersonal relationships in the band, his marriage and faith.
A lot of the book was the airing of dirty laundry between himself and Gerry, his drug use, wife, and new found faith.You can read better articles about the band on the internet. The book was a personal view that was very biased. It also needed a better editor to give the author some guidelines. What he made public was personal in the dynamics of the band. I think by the time the band became a duo and this book came out, the chances of a reunion were zero.
Luckily for fans we still have America still touring.
We also have Mr. Peek’s music and talent from those formative years as well. I prefer to remember him that way.
January 21, 2026
If you are a big fan of this guy, you will probably love this book. He obviously wrote it himself. It comes across as heartfelt but disorganized and not very personal.
He mentions meeting a woman ( 15 year old girl) and falling in love with her but never says why. He gives no details about her. He mentions moving to the other side of the world to pursue her but tells nothing of what he did once he got there. How did he pursue her? He doesn’t mention the agony of being unable to see her, the joy of secret phone calls, the dreams and promises. Nothing. An entire chapter about moving to another country to pursue this girl and we still hear nothing about her. Just that her parents tried to prevent them meeting. Then after a year he moves away. He mentions a break up, but it’s all vague. Did he break up with her or she with him? Why did he love her in the first place? Surely something made her special? How many times did they meet? What did they talk about? Did they fight a lot? A couple years later she visits LA. How did he hear about it? Did she call him? Had they been keeping in touch? After that meeting, he proposed. Seriously? Proposed to someone you apparently hadn’t seen in years and had only met in person a couple times? He continues to mention her from time to time but always in a vague and impersonal way. She apparently co-wrote songs with him but he barely mentions it except in passing. Did she sing or play instruments? He never says.
The rest of the book is equally vague.
This story really should have been given to a professional writer, as there is so much there worth hearing about. As it is, it’s a confusing mess. Chapter after chapter I’m constantly wondering what year it is that he’s speaking about. It’s very disjointed.
In the end he gives his life back to Christ but doesn’t talk about anything that happened afterwards. He actually goes back to talking about the party days. It’s very rambling.
The biggest disappointment is his complete lack of any kind of description behind the famous songs that he wrote.
Edit:
Ever since I read this book, I’ve noticed that whenever I hear a Cat Steven’s song now, I think of a scene mentioned in the book. Cat apparently found it amusing to spit his food out of his mouth and into other peoples faces while he dined out in restaurants.
He mentions meeting a woman ( 15 year old girl) and falling in love with her but never says why. He gives no details about her. He mentions moving to the other side of the world to pursue her but tells nothing of what he did once he got there. How did he pursue her? He doesn’t mention the agony of being unable to see her, the joy of secret phone calls, the dreams and promises. Nothing. An entire chapter about moving to another country to pursue this girl and we still hear nothing about her. Just that her parents tried to prevent them meeting. Then after a year he moves away. He mentions a break up, but it’s all vague. Did he break up with her or she with him? Why did he love her in the first place? Surely something made her special? How many times did they meet? What did they talk about? Did they fight a lot? A couple years later she visits LA. How did he hear about it? Did she call him? Had they been keeping in touch? After that meeting, he proposed. Seriously? Proposed to someone you apparently hadn’t seen in years and had only met in person a couple times? He continues to mention her from time to time but always in a vague and impersonal way. She apparently co-wrote songs with him but he barely mentions it except in passing. Did she sing or play instruments? He never says.
The rest of the book is equally vague.
This story really should have been given to a professional writer, as there is so much there worth hearing about. As it is, it’s a confusing mess. Chapter after chapter I’m constantly wondering what year it is that he’s speaking about. It’s very disjointed.
In the end he gives his life back to Christ but doesn’t talk about anything that happened afterwards. He actually goes back to talking about the party days. It’s very rambling.
The biggest disappointment is his complete lack of any kind of description behind the famous songs that he wrote.
Edit:
Ever since I read this book, I’ve noticed that whenever I hear a Cat Steven’s song now, I think of a scene mentioned in the book. Cat apparently found it amusing to spit his food out of his mouth and into other peoples faces while he dined out in restaurants.
August 18, 2014
I really enjoyed this book, both as a longtime fan of America and as autobiography. As a good one does, you get a very interesting picture of Dan. You can tell he is fun, energetic, loveable, and probably a big pain in the butt. He write in short sentences with many grammatical errors, yet you can tell he is worldly smart in many ways. A fun, eye opening book. Perhaps the most interesting thing about it is the insight into not only the band members but others such as David Geffen, Cat Stevens, Joe Walsh, Joni Mitchell, the Beatles, Rod Stewart, and others.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews