Firefall Reignited!
Jock Bartley talks about the road that found them reunited with Friends & Family
With a history that reaches back some 50 years, Firefall can claim credit as one of the forerunners of modern Americana.
With a roster that included at one time or another members of The Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris’ back-up band The Fallen Angels, Zephyr, Spirit, and Carole King’s onetime backing band, Navarro, the band was, in every sense, a supergroup with an exceptional pedigree.
Unlike many of their contemporaries, they also achieved mainstream success, courtesy of the chart-topping singles that were spawned from their first four albums including “Livin’ Ain’t Livin’” (1976), “You Are the Woman” (1976), “Just Remember I Love You” (1977), “Strange Way” (1978), “Cinderella (1977), “Headed for a Fall” (1980) and “Staying With It” (1981).
The original two principals, Jock Bartley and ex-Burrito Brother Rick Roberts, met in New York City in 1973. Bartley was enjoying a brief stint in the Fallen Angels while Roberts, newly departed from the Burritos, was doing a solo show. When they discovered that they both lived in Boulder, Colorado, they agreed to meet with the intention of forming a new band. They subsequently recruited bassist Mark Andes, formerly of Spirit and Jo Jo Gunne, who had also relocated to the area. Roberts recommended guitarist Larry Burnett, and after former Byrds drummer Michael Clarke joined the fledgling ensemble, the band was complete.
A demo was overseen by Chris Hillman, and in due time, they were signed by Atlantic Records which released their eponymous debut album in 1976. The first single, “Livin’ Ain’t Livin’,” barely grazed Billboard’s Top 100, but after extensive touring, the single “You Are the Woman” brought them their first top ten hit. A string of successful albums followed — Luna Sea in 1977, Elan in 1978, 1980’s Undertow and Clouds Across the Sun, also in 1980.
Nevertheless, by the dawn of the ‘80s, that initial series of successes came to an abrupt end. Management hassles, including aborted interest from Mick Fleetwood, a series of personnel changes and a prolonged absence from the recording studio erased the awareness that might have lingered longer had the obstacles not impeded their progress. A final album, Best of Firefall marked the end of that initial incarnation.
That said, Bartley, now the band’s only original member, continued to soldier on. Break of Dawn, released in 1982, featured contributions form new recruits John Sambataro and Chuck Kirkpatrick, as well as guest appearances by Stephen Stills a returning Rick Roberts and a number of session stalwarts. Another album, Mirror of the World followed in November 1983.
Unfortunately though, it appeared that Fireball’s luster was beginning to fade. Still the band continued to tour, supporting the likes of such superstars as the Beach Boys, Journey, Bob Seger and the Little River Band.
“One of the biggest gigs we ever played was with Fleetwood Mac during their Rumors period,” Bartley remembers. “It was in our hometown of Boulder, Colorado. We played at Folsom Stadium in front of around 70,000 people. What’s interesting is just two years earlier, we were playing a little club called the Good Earth, perfecting our songs and our sound, and about to go down to Miami and make our first record. So things happened really fast for us in the ‘70s.”
It was only after a lengthy hiatus from recording that Messenger was released in September 1994. A series of mainly acoustic shows following in the early 2000s. A Firefall reunion featuring the band’s then-current lineup joined by Mark Andes, David Muse, Larry Burnett and original Firefall studio percussionist Joe Lala also took place at that time. The band’s fortunes began to change for the better when, in January 9, 2015, Firefall was inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame. Then, in December 2020, Barkley and company released Comet, the first new Firefall album in 20 years.
That brings us to the band’s new album, Friends & Family, a salute to the songs made famous by their peers, including the Doobie Brothers, Heart, Spirit, Fleetwood Mac, Heart, Loggins and Messina, The Band and Marshall Tucker. And while tribute albums can seem suspect, the songs on this album — Spirit’s “I’ve Got a Line On You,” The Byrds’ “I’ll Feel A Whole Better,” Dan Fogelberg’s “Part of the Plan” and Rick Roberts’ classic “Colorado,” make a revisit to these offerings decidedly worthwhile. Bartley is still at the helm, leading a current Firefall configuration that features recent addition John Bisaha (bass, vocals), Sandy Ficca (drums), Steven Weinmeister (guitar, bass, mandolin, keyboards, vocals ), and Jim Waddell (keyboards, flute, saxophone)
“Our new vocalist and bass player, John Bissau, said to me, we should do the song ‘What About Love?’,” Bartley recalled. “I’m pretty good friends with Howard Leese who was in the original Heart band and later played with Paul Rodgers in Bad Company. I asked Howard if he wanted to play on our version. He played such an amazing guitar solo on the original. He said,’ Oh, sure!’ I said, ‘Why don’t you play some power guitar, and take the solo,’ and he went ‘Great.’ To have Howard on that record is one of the cool things the were able to do. We also had John Jorgenson, who’s one of the best guitarists on the planet. We had John play on our Byrds song, ‘Feel a Whole Lot Better.’”
Barkley admits that it was a fine line between keeping true to the original versions and putting their own imprint on the material at the same time.
“There were some selections we didn’t really have a clue about,” he allows. “For instance, what Doobie Brothers song would we pick? I knew that if we pick just about any Doobie Brothers song, there’d be thousands of Doobie Brothers fans going, ‘How obnoxious! How dare they play my favorite song!’ That meant we had to really do a good version of all the songs. Sometimes we kept it close to the vest. In the case of ‘Part of the Plan’ by Dan Fogelberg, we kept it really close to Dan’s version. But on the Doobie Brothers song we did, ‘Long Train Running,’ I didn’t really want to feature Tommy Johnston’s main guitar riff, you know the one that goes (sings) ‘ticka ticka ticka.’ That’s the signature sound and lick for that whole song and a lot of their songs. But there was a second guitar part, which I wanted to feature and maybe make the signature riff a little less prominent. And then we added a saxophone. So our version of ‘Long Train Running’ is certainly a little different than the original. This was about paying homage to how great the music of the late ‘60s and ‘70s was.”
At the same time, Bartley emphasizes that making it an album that lives up to Firefall standards was the chief priority.
“I’ve been making Firefall records for 40 years, and I know how to good make good Firefall records,” he insists. “When we recorded ‘What About Love,’ I said, ‘We need flute on the beginning. So too, the bass part is reminiscent of the original Firefall song ‘Strange Way.’ I didn’t try to make the songs sound like Firefall, but many of them kind of just did.”
Clearly, Bartley takes pride in the band, and also takes great joy in being able to continue to its legacy.
“I’m in my 70s, and fortunately, still able to do this,” he said. Sometimes we’ll see a 20-year-old couple or a 30-year-old couple out in the crowd — a lot of younger people singing along with all of our songs. Their parents played the records when they were growing up, so they were exposed to the Eagles and Firefall and Dan Fogelberg and Little River Band as youngsters because their parents played the songs all the time.”
Bartley said that the idea for doing a tribute album came from their manager Len Fico.
“He suggested this concept of playing other people’s songs and paying homage to that era,” Bartley recalled. “He called me and said, ‘The members of the original band Firefall played in a lot of other famous bands like the Byrds, the Burrito Brothers, Dan Fogelberg and so on, so why don’t you do an album of just their songs?’ And I went, ‘That’s a great idea. But let’s expand that ever so slightly.’ In 1976, when Fireball’s first album came out, and was such a big success, we toured right off the bat with some of the biggest bands in the world, including Fleetwood Mac, the Doobie Brothers, Loggins and Messina, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Marshall, Tucker — all these bands — Let’s do a song from those bands, too.”
The idea to bring past to present quickly caught on.
“It was kind of a continuation for us,” Bartley continues. “And. Here’s a scoop for you — we’re already starting a Friends & Family part two, with songs that will include a Stephen Stills song and another Fleetwood Mac song and, and another by The Byrds, ‘So You Want To Be a Rock and Roll Star.’ When Mark Andes was in the band we used to play ‘So You Want To Be a Rock and Roll Star’ as our encore song for a number of years.”
In fact, Bartley sees Firefall as part of a musical continuum that began with the essential originators of late ‘60s Americana.
“Firefall sits atop that tree,” he insists. “It starts with The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield. As the branches fan out, you’ve got the Eagles and Poco and Buffalo Springfield and Loggins and Messina and all those bands. And Firefall is legitimately atop that tree. People like Tom Petty kind of borrowed the branches of that tree. When the grunge scene came along, bands like Nirvana and so forth, suddenly three part harmonies and acoustic guitars and what Firefall had done was kind of out of fashion. But I knew our songs were still so great. So we would tour a lot and play clubs and festivals and casinos and stuff. When the term classic rock started in the ‘90s, people sort of got sick of listening to disco and non-melodic music, and that’s when radio stations all over the USA started playing Steely Dan and Firefall and Dan Fogelberg and the Eagles again, because that’s the music that was vibrant, and still sounded great, even though it was 20 to 25 years later. It was nice because suddenly, our music and the the style of music we played was in fashion and being listened to again. It was kind of like the full circle came around.”
Clearly Bartley still shares a fondness for the past. Friends & Family offers ample evidence.
“I sometimes do think that I am a nostalgic guy,” he admits. “The truth is, the music of the ‘70s, was so vibrant — the music made by bands like the Eagles and Flying Burrito Brothers, Loggins and Messina, and all those bands from L.A. And Firefall played a small role in that big ‘70s sound. The ‘70s saw this boom of Southern California rock ‘n’ roll that just changed the world. Having that in my memory, and being part of who I am now, is really great. I don’t think the music of the ‘70s, with all the great bands and songwriters and solo artists, will really ever be duplicated.”
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