The music her father created in the 1970s continues to reverberate with fans around the world, and keeping it front and center is a responsibility Lua Crofts does not take lightly.
Crofts’ dad is Dash Crofts, of the soft-rock duo Seals & Crofts. Along with singer/songwriter Brady Seals – a cousin of Dash’s musical partner, the late Jim Seals – she’s part of Seals & Crofts 2, a five-piece band that celebrates and elevates the Seals & Crofts musical legend.
Seals & Crofts 2 will appear Thursday at the Central Park Performing Arts Center in Largo (find tickets at this link).
“We just had a show last night in Pennsylvania,” Crofts says in a telephone interview. “We opened up for Little River Band, which we’ve done a few times now. They gave us a standing ovation, and then they rushed the stage. They wanted to shake our hands.
“They were so lovely, so warm and so appreciative – some of them had tears in their eyes. ‘Thank you for doing this. We’ve missed this music. We loved Seals & Crofts.’”
Mostly acoustic (with guitar and mandolin at the foundation, with close-harmony singing) Seals & Crofts’ music included a handful of charting songs (including “Summer Breeze,” “Hummingbird,” “Diamond Girl” and “We May Never Pass This Way Again”), along with the rhythm ‘n’ blues crooner “Get Closer” – and a vast catalogue of “deep cuts” from a half-dozen platinum albums.
“As the daughter, I knew the hits and stuff,” Crofts explains. “But when Brady and I started putting this together, and we started going through the catalogue to see what we could learn and put in the show, I started to uncover all these songs. And I’m like ‘Oh my gosh, these are amazing.’
“To think that they only had a really short period of time for their success, and their music still lives on and still touches people, goes to show the quality of their music, and their musicianship. The sound that they created. It’s just amazing to see how many people they touched.”
Brady Seals’ career included a six-year stint in the country band Little Texas (“My Love,” “What Might Have Been”), and as a prolific solo artist. These are touched upon in the Seals & Crofts 2 set list.
Seals & Crofts 2 began when Crofts, who was carving out a name for herself as a Nashville studio vocalist, worked on a Seals session. On a whim, they tried harmonizing on “Summer Breeze.”
“I don’t know what I expected,” she says. “We were having a great time. But he and I didn’t really need to do this. We’re grownups; we’re not trying to get a record deal or anything. We’re not these young kids out there trying to hit the pavement and do all these big records. We just thought we would do this for fun.”
That was nearly seven years ago. The show has expanded and changed over the years, to include more original songs – and more songs from the Seals & Crofts catalogue.
“I feel like I’m at the helm because Dash is my dad, so I feel a really deep responsibility,” Crofts says.
“Because they really protected their legacy. They were two men of faith, so they really had not only a musical standard but a spiritual standard that they lived to. So I’ve been very, very careful about how I present myself, and their music. I really want to be protective of who they are, and who they were.”