Over the next several years, the band continued to release hit songs, including "Muskrat Love" on Hat Trick (1973), "Tin Man" and "Lonely People" on Holiday (1974) and "Sister Golden Hair" and "Daisy Jane" on their 1975 record Hearts.

Eventually, the trio dubbed itself America, inspired by the Americana jukebox in their local mess hall, and chose it because they did not want anyone to think they were British musicians trying to sound American.

The debut album, America, was released in late December 1971 to only moderate success, although it sold well in the Netherlands, where Dexter had taken them as a training ground to practice their craft.

One of them was a Bunnell composition called "Desert Song", which Dexter previously demonstrated during studio rehearsals in Puddletown, Dorset, at the home of Arthur Brown.

[4] After their initial success, the trio played a series of North American club and college dates in early 1972, and decided to dismiss Samwell and Dexter and relocate to Los Angeles, California, signing with the David Geffen/Elliot Roberts stable at Lookout Management.

They were able to secure the services of producer George Martin and recording engineer Geoff Emerick, who played a major role in shaping the sound of the Beatles.

During the summer/fall of 1974, bassist Calvin "Fuzzy" Samuels (formerly of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Manassas) was called to fill in for Dickey, who had come to Europe but then flown home inadvertently.

[6] The trio soon found themselves in the top 10 once again with the first single from Holiday, the Bunnell-penned "Tin Man", which reached number four, featuring cryptic lyrics set to a Wizard of Oz theme.

[8] For their 1976 tour, the group expanded their stage line-up to include Jim Calire on keyboards and sax and Tom Walsh on percussion, so they could more comfortably perform Martin's arrangements.

[10] After more than two years without new studio material, Beckley and Bunnell presented the group's new style with a cover of The Mamas & the Papas' "California Dreamin'" in March 1979.

For their next album, Alibi, released in August 1980, Beckley and Bunnell sought fresh personnel in the form of producers Matthew McCauley and Fred Mollin.

As with Alibi (1980), Beckley and Bunnell brought in a number of high-profile musicians, including the Beach Boys' Carl Wilson, Toto's Jeff Porcaro, Christopher Cross and Dean Parks.

Although View from the Ground failed to achieve gold-rated sales, it scored as high as number 41 on the album charts, a significant improvement over the previous few releases.

The next single, "Can't Fall Asleep to a Lullaby", was co-written by Bunnell, Journey's Steve Perry, Robert Haimer, and Bill Mumy, the latter of Lost in Space and Babylon 5 fame.

During 1991, America was able to offer four new tracks as part of a collection issued by Rhino Records called Encore: More Greatest Hits, which was designed to complement the group's original 1975 retrospective.

Comedian Phil Hartman (who during his career as a graphic artist had designed several America album covers) was featured as the voice of a televangelist preacher on Playing God.

Known as In Concert (not to be confused with the 1985 Capitol release of the same name), King Biscuit experienced modest success with the album (though America themselves did not; it failed to break the charts).

[citation needed] The next few years had the group's catalogue expand with a number of side projects, reissues of older albums on CD, and several major retrospective releases.

In July 2000 Rhino released Highway: 30 Years of America, a three-CD box set which included 64 remastered tracks spanning the group's career.

As part of a contemporary trend of recycling oldies recordings to create new hits, Janet Jackson's 2001 single "Someone to Call My Lover" sampled the Ventura Highway guitar riff and rose to number three on the Billboard pop charts.

Produced by Andrew Gold, the album received positive reviews for its imaginative blending of elements of classic America tunes into familiar holiday standards.

Recorded the previous April in the Cayman Islands, the concert featured just Beckley and Bunnell on acoustic guitars, a throwback to the earliest days of their career.

Though the group had occasionally issued new material on minor labels, their offerings had been largely ignored by the greater commercial music industry and record-buying public.

The recording sessions at Stratosphere Sound in New York City, which ran through July, included guest musicians such as Ryan Adams, Ben Kweller, Stephen Bishop, Rusty Young and members of the groups Nada Surf and My Morning Jacket.

In an effort to aim the album toward both younger and older audiences, the label decided to bundle the new album with a second disc comprising live performances of every track from History: America's Greatest Hits, previously recorded at XM Radio as part of XM's Then Again...Live series, recorded with longtime America drummer Willie Leacox, guitarist Michael Woods and bassist Richard Campbell.

Entitled Back Pages, the album was a collection of twelve tracks covering songs from artists ranging from Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell to Adam Schlesinger and the Gin Blossoms.

In November 2014 America recorded a live performance at Infinity Hall in Hartford, CT for Connecticut Public Television that was subsequently aired nationwide in June 2015, and afterwards streamed online.

Although Beckley and Bunnell had over the years become increasingly firm in their position that a reunion with Peek was unlikely, and could in fact be counterproductive, record companies tried to persuade them to change their minds.

A Rolling Stone rock music discography book, printed during the mid-1990s, contained an apocryphal entry for America stating that Dan Peek had reunited with Beckley and Bunnell for a tour in 1993 with The Beach Boys.

This misinformation has been so widely disseminated that the Australian rock journalist and historian Glenn A. Baker erroneously assumed this to be true in an interview question posed to Beckley and Bunnell on the Live at the Sydney Opera House DVD.