Deep Dive: Dan Fogelberg and Tim Weisberg, NO RESEMBLANCE WHATSOEVER
Today we celebrate the birthday of the late Dan Fogelberg, one of the most popular singer-songwriters of the 1970s, but since his ‘70s output isn’t part of our catalog, we’re going in a different direction to commemorate the date and instead shining a spotlight on the second of two collaborative albums that Fogelberg made with jazz flautist Tim Weisberg.
As you may already know, Fogelberg and Weisberg first collaborated on the 1978 album TWIN SONS OF DIFFERENT MOTHERS, an LP which climbed all the way to #8 on the Billboard 200 and spawned a hit single with “The Power of Gold.” Weisberg’s recording career had begun back in 1969, when he contributed to THE MONKEES PRESENT, and he subsequently found success both on his own (his song “A Hard Way to Go” can be heard in Annie Hall) and with other artists (he’s on The Carpenters’ A SONG FOR YOU and Dave Mason’s self-titled album, among others). As for his work with Fogelberg, Weisberg first turned up on Fogelberg’s 1977 album NETHER LANDS, and one can only presume that his contributions to the song “Give Me Some Time” proved inspiring to both artists, given the subsequent album-length collaboration that followed immediately thereafter.
Why it took so long for Fogelberg and Weisberg to work together again, we don’t know. But we do at least know what led to that second album, thanks to a 1995 interview Fogelberg did with The Chicago Tribune.
"I was ready to do another solo album, but this thing seemed to fall out of nowhere," Fogelberg explained in the interview. “I had written a bunch of instrumental pieces and thought, `Well, if I do decide to record these things, Tim would sound great on this.' After I had about two or three more songs, I started thinking I might have a possibility for another TWIN SONS record."
He thought correctly, of course, and the end result was pretty great. Per AllMusic.com, the album “builds on the original project and explores new musical avenues while keeping fans hoping another recording by the two will occur in the future.”
Alas, that was not to be: Fogelberg was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in May 2004, and although it went into remission for a time, it soon returned, resulting in his death on December 16, 2007 at age 56. But while we may not have gotten a third Fogelberg / Weisberg collaboration, it took so long for a second LP by the duo to emerge that we should just be happy that we at least got two of ‘em.
