SEALS & CROFTSFrequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Where are they now?
Jimmy Seals passed away in 2022 and was laid to rest at Woodlawn Memoral Park in Nashville, TN. Before his health failed, he was active with musical projects with other Bahá'í musicians in the U.S., and the musical projects of his children, while nominally operating a coffee farm in Costa Rica and maintaining a residence in Tennessee. Jimmy toured with his brother Dan, and with his sons Sutherland and Joshua, as "Seals & Seals" intermittently from 2002-8. Dash and his wife Louise live on a ranch in Texas, where they raise alpacas, horses (for a time, Arabians) and mind other critters. Dash makes occasional appearances with his mandolin. He released a solo album called Today in 1998, re-released in 2000. In 2004, the duo released their last album, Traces. Seals & Crofts last toured in 1992 and occasionally appeared together to perform at Bahá'í functions.
2. What music is available?
All of the Seals & Crofts albums are now available on streaming services. Many performances are found on YouTube. A treasure trove of live performances and rarities is at Bill Thompson's "Thompsonian Institution" site. The various master tapes of the albums are believed to be in a climate controlled facility in Burbank, California, controlled by Warner Brothers/Time Warner/Sony and the subsidiary Rhino Records. For many years digital media was unavailable. After the Greatest Hits and Summer Breeze albums were put on CD in the early 90's, there was a considerable lag. Between 2000 and 2004, Rhino planned a two disc compilation, hired a sound engineer to access the masters and even had liner notes prepared. The project was then reduced to a single disc and then fizzled altogether. No box set was even considered. Part of the problem was timing. By the time Rhino got around to a serious release, Traces was a new album in the works. There was a perception that the anthology release would compete on the market, and hurt the sales of Traces. After that album's release, Rhino went ahead and produced a limited CD release of Diamond Girl in February of 2005 (and a rather pointless "Hi-Five" EP CD), Get Closer in 2007, and another run of Summer Breeze in 2008 through their Flashback division. The other albums started coming out on the Wounded Bird label in September of 2007. Those came from a DAT format rather than the masters. Most of those first run CDs sold out and are only available on the secondary markets.
Since 2007 there have been several product releases. Rhino packaged 5 albums on CD for a reasonable price in 2015. Wounded Bird released "The Singles A's & B's" in 2017. More recently, Rhino put out a single vinyl disc compilation and a high-quality quadrophonic release of Summer Breeze. None of these have new material.
Some of the vinyl is becoming hard to find. The eponymous album in 1969 and the last album (Longest Road) in 1980 are the hardest to locate. The soundtrack to the movie "One On One" is also becoming scare. These were all readily available in record stores, but such stores are quickly disappearing, even in the San Francisco area where I live. (Village Music in Mill Valley, the best record store ever, is a thing of the past). EBay usually has some Seals & Crofts records for sale, and is probably the best no-hassle source.
There are some notable audio bootlegs. There is a great 16 channel Carnegie Hall concert with orchestra recorded amd mastered by Warner Brothers that somehow got leaked. There is also a 1971 concert at Texas A&M, featuring a great early version of "Wisdom." There is the so-called Peace Concert, circa early 1972 at an unknown location. This is the only 70's vinyl bootleg of S&C, which features the sillouette of a child holding a flower on the cover. A photo of the album cover is at this picture page. Other concerts are found at the "Thompsonian Institution."
Some of the video highlights on youtube.com include appearances on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert and the Midnight Special. There is a video of S & C from their Greek Theater concert in 1976, which captures the Sudan Village tour and is chock full of documentary tidbits, edited for a television special. The entire set for "California Jam" was filmed and can be seen. There is a circa 1972 in-studio performance of "Hummingbird," "Summer Breeze" and "Eighth of January" which has some conversation with the WB president at the time, Joe Smith. This is the most common video to find because it was mass produced and sold in the 70's. This video transfer also has Martin Mull, and sometimes BJ Thomas. There is a set on the Old Grey Whistle Test. There is a stunning live performance of "Ashes In the Snow." There is also the "In Concert" performance (with a surprising rendition of "Paper Airplanes"). There is a Johnny Carson show performance of "Hummingbird." "Diamond Girl" is played with the gyrating Solid Gold dancers in 1980, and an thoroghly enjoyable acoustic version of that tune for a Canadian tv station survives from about 1991. There is a 1992 appearance at the Toronto Unity Arts Festival, which is perhaps the last video of them found. There is other video that is collected at the Seals & Crofts Facebook Group.
Most of the album sessions yielded unreleased songs, which are identified on the individual album pages. There is also a complete unreleased album done in Australia in the early 1980's and many privately-held songs into the 1990's and beyond. It is unknown if they will ever see the light of day.
3. Where can I get the sheet music for their songs?
"Seals & Crofts Complete," was a brown-covered volume published through Warner Brothers, which has nearly all of the music for their songs through 1976. It is very hard to find, but nearly as good is the two volume "Seals & Crofts Retrospective" which has the artwork from the I & II double album. There are individual album songbooks as well. EBay is the best source for these.
None of these compilations have guitar tablature, and the chord indications are hit and miss. For example, there are good chord markings for "We May Never Pass," "High On a Mountain" and "Wayland the Rabbit." Others like "Hummingbird" are a very tough read, and it is probably the least covered hit because of its complexity. Musicians contributed some guitar tablature to the ultimateguitar.com website, which may be worth checking out. There are many attempts to instruct on YouTube and some are quite good.
4. Did Jim Seals record with Dan Seals?
Dan Seals is the younger brother of Jim, and was partner in the 70's act, "England Dan and John Ford Coley," before becoming a popular country artist. Dan sang backup on the Diamond Girl album, but this was probably limited to the song, "Dust On My Saddle." They played saxes together for the first time during those sessions, though no examples were released. Jimmy occasionally played guitar and fiddle on some of the "England Dan" records. Dash and Dan sang extensively together on several S & C tunes recorded for the Lift Up Your Voices series in 1997. Much earlier, Jim and Dan cowrote the song "Windflowers," found on S & C's Unborn Child album. There are also some unreleased songs they penned, such as "Get This Girl To Marry You" way back in 1963, and "Hold It Up To Light," in 1995. When they decided to tour as Seals & Seals, they recorded about 8 original songs that are still unreleased after Dan's passing in 2009.
5. When did Seals & Crofts last tour?
Their last tour was in Canada and the U.S., in 1992. After that they played together on occasion at Bahá'í functions only.
6. What were the hits?
7. Why a Seals & Crofts Website?
I became a big fan the moment I heard "Hummingbird" on the radio in early 1973. To my surprise, no one else has created a website, and so I created the first version in 1998. My simple purpose was to post information to their legions of fans and introduce their music to a younger generation. If you have additional info or corrections for this website, please email me at sftony@earthlink.net.
-- Tony Bentivegna