Dash Crofts, the singer-guitarist who helped soundtrack the soft-rock wave of the 1970s as one half of the duo Seals and Crofts, has died, a family member told TMZ. Crofts died yesterday (March 25) from complications of a heart surgery. He was 85.
Seals and Crofts formed in the late 1960s when Crofts and Jim Seals, his longtime friend who he met growing up in Texas, wanted to showcase their own songwriting talents after playing together in a handful of other California bands as supporting members. Once the Dawnbreakers, their project centered around promoting the Baháʼí Faith, fizzled out, the two started Seals and Crofts strictly as a duo to freshen up their sound. With Crofts handling guitar and mandolin while Seals played guitar, saxophone, and violin, they brought a warm, string tone to their music and, come 1969, were offered a contract deal with the record division of Talent Associates.
Together, Seals and Crofts recorded their first two albums, their self-titled debut and Down Home, to mild success. Upon signing a new contract with Warner Bros in August 1971, however, their music found its audience. The 1971 album Year of the Sunday landed on the Billboard charts, while its follow-up, 1972’s Summer Breeze, turned the duo into stars. Lead single “Summer Breeze” became an unshakeable hit, with its easygoing take on pop rock soaring to No. 4 on the Adult Contemporary chart and going on to become a soft-rock staple on the radio.
Seals and Crofts put out albums annually, sometimes even two LPs in a single year, on through their breakup in 1981. With their rapid songwriting pace, the duo scored a number of other hits, be it the rollicking stomp of “I’ll Play for You” and “When I Meet Them,” or the danceable grooves of “Diamond Girl” and “You’re the Love.” Their breezy approach didn’t steer away from bold themes or controversy, though, with the duo finding unlikely success with their anti-abortion track “Unborn Child” in 1974.
Seals and Crofts reunited for a brief period in the early 1990s, and went on to join forces once again for their final album, Traces, in 2004. During one of those gaps, Crofts recorded his own solo album, 1998’s Today, which dove headfirst into the easy-listening pop and soft jazz that was popular at the time. He stayed in touch with his bandmate on through to his medical troubles, when Seals suffered a stroke in 2017 and eventually died in 2022.
