You’ll Hear New Gerry Beckley Music At The America Concert But Not In The Setlist

America co-founder Gerry Beckley has found a clever way to sneak his new music into the America 50th anniversary shows.

Fans will hear songs from Gerry’s new solo album ‘Five Mile Road’ as they enter and leave the theatre.

“There’s no songs from the album in the show but they are featuring the album in the before and after music, the walk-in and walk-out,” Gerry tells Noise11.com. “You’ll get a bit of a listen but we haven’t worked up any of the tunes up. The 50th anniversary show is a tribute to America and I don’t think it would be right.”

The 50th anniversary will see a lot of new packages of America songs released over the next 12 months. “The upcoming year is full of a variety of box sets and rarity releases,” Gerry says. “When we looked at the schedule it pretty much fills the calendar. We have three different box sets coming out over the next 12 months plus a live concert DVD we did at the London Palladium. There is not going to be a shortage of America stuff but there won’t be any new material.”

Box sets have been designed around eras. “We have ‘The Capitol Years’ which is mostly the 80s,” he says. “There is a box of each of the sperate albums. The Warner material will come in three versions, a vinyl disc copy, a two or three CD set, a one-disc compilation. There is also a box coming from the UK which is all rarities or previously unheard stuff”.

There are a few unreleased songs from the early days but not many. “Virtually nothing was in the sessions that wasn’t included. In fact on that album, a unique feature is that ‘A Horse With No Name’ wasn’t a part of the first album when it originally came out in the UK. We went into the studio a month after it was released and recorded ‘Horse’ and a couple more. ‘Horse’ was then added for the rest of the world. What we do have is a variety of demos we cut leading up to the album. Although they are just earlier versions of the songs people know like ‘I Need You’ and ‘Riverside’, there are a few that didn’t make it to the first album and they were the early days of the group”.