Texan Jim Seals of the 1970s hit duo Seals & Crofts dies at 80

Native Texan Jim Seals, who as half of the duo Seals & Crofts turned a hit-making machine in the 1970s, and whose youthful brother Dan grew up in Pleasant Grove, the place he co-founded his personal wildly profitable Top 40 pairing, died Monday. He was 80.

Born in 1941 to a West Texas oilman, Wayland Seals, and his spouse, Cora, Jim Seals and bandmate Darrel “Dash” Crofts turned Platinum sensations by recording such super-selling hits as “Summer Breeze” and “Diamond Girl.” Their 1975 Greatest Hits album went “double platinum” — greater than 2 million copies bought.

Friends and family confirmed the singer’s loss of life on Monday night time, with Brady Seals, Jim’s cousin and a former member of the nation band Little Texas, saying in an announcement:

“I just learned that James ‘Jimmy’ Seals has passed. My heart just breaks for his wife Ruby and their children. Please keep them in your prayers. What an incredible legacy he leaves behind.”

Part of Seals’ legacy was inspiring different bands, equivalent to these of his youthful brother. During their days at Samuell High School in the Nineteen Sixties, Dan Seals and classmate John Ford Coley performed in a well-liked band known as Southwest F.O.B. The two later shaped their very own group, England Dan and John Ford Coley, recording such platinum hits as “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight,” which in the U.S. soared to No. 2.

Dan Seals, who later turned a significant nation artist in Nashville, died in 2009 at age 61. Coley launched an announcement about Jim Seals on Tuesday through which he wrote:

“This is a hard one on so many levels as this is a musical era passing for me. And it will never pass this way again, as his song said,” referring to the Seals & Croft hit, “We May Never Pass This Way (Again).”

“You and Dan finally get reunited again,” Coley added. “Tell him and your sweet momma hi for me.”

Rock purists usually aimed well-placed jabs at the “soft rock” of Seals and Crofts — with critic Robert Christgau dubbing the duo “folk-schlock” — however their industrial endurance on AM radio made them superstars throughout the Watergate period and past. “Summer Breeze” in 1972 and “Diamond Girl” in 1973 each cracked the Top 10 of the Top 40, as did “Get Closer” in 1976.

Seals & Crofts broke up in 1980 however did launch another album, Traces, in 2004.

Coley, the Samuell High grad, who spent his childhood in Pleasant Grove, shared extra of his emotions about Jim Seals on Facebook:

“I spent a large portion of my musical life with this man,” he wrote. “He was Dan’s older brother, and it was Jimmy that gave Dan and me our stage name. He taught me how to juggle, made me laugh, pissed me off, encouraged me, showed me amazing worlds and different understandings on life, especially on a philosophical level.”

He additionally credited Seals with jump-starting his profession.

“It was because of Jimmy opening doors for us that we came to Los Angeles to record and meet the right people. … He belonged to a group that was one of a kind. I am very sad over this but I have some of the best memories of all of us together.”

Born Oct. 17, 1941, James Eugene Seals grew up in Iraan, Texas, earlier than his household, together with his youthful brother, ended up in Southeast Dallas. His love of music recorded its first main milestone in 1952, throughout a contest in West Texas, the place Jim, not but an adolescent, seized first place in the fiddle division.

By 1972, Seals & Crofts had been a nationwide sensation, with Jim Seals as soon as telling Texas Monthly about the reception they acquired upon displaying up for a live performance in Ohio.

“There were kids waiting for us at the airport. That night we had a record crowd, maybe 40,000 people. And I remember people throwing their hats and coats in the air as far as you could see, against the moon. Prettiest thing you’ve ever seen.”

By 1974, they had been sharing the stage with such high-profile acts as Deep Purple and the Eagles. Another vital milestone in the band’s historical past occurred in 1974, with Seals & Crofts inciting controversy by recording an anti-abortion track, “Unborn Child,” in the wake of the Roe v. Wade ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court.

As Variety later reported, “The belief that abortion was wrong came out of their shared Baha’i beliefs, and they released it over the objections of their label, Warner Bros.”

Jim Seals later famous, “If we’d known it was going to cause such disunity, we might have thought twice about doing it. At the time it overshadowed all the other things we were trying to say in our music.”

Seals is survived by Ruby and by their youngsters Joshua, Juliette and Sutherland.