Arts & Entertainment
America to Receive Star on Walk of Fame
The band will receive a star in the category of recording at Monday's ceremony in Hollywood.
The rock band America will receive the 2,459th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Monday, when they'll be honored for such iconic hits as Horse With No Name, Ventura Highway, Sister Golden Hair and Tin Man.
Actors John Stamos and Billy Bob Thornton will join the two surviving founding members of the group, Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell, in speaking at the 11:30 a.m. ceremony in front of Musicians Institute on Hollywood Boulevard.
Beckley, Bunnell and Dan Peek met as students at London Central High School, a school for children of U.S. armed forces personnel, and decided to form a band, which they named America. Its first of 16 studio albums, America, released in 1971, hit No. 1 on the U.S. charts and went platinum on the strength of Horse With No Name.
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America won the best new artist Grammy for 1972, beating out the Eagles, Harry Chapin, John Prine and the duo of Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina.
America was also nominated for that year's Grammy for best pop, folk and rock vocal performance by a duo, group or chorus for Horse With No Name, losing out to Where Is the Love by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway.
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Peek quit the group in 1977 and died July 24 at the age of 60.
America remains very active, performing in more than 100 live shows a years. In 2011, it released the CD Back Pages, its interpretations of some of its favorite songs.
Monday's ceremony comes one day before Beckley and Bunnell appear at a sold-out program at The Grammy Museum in downtown Los Angeles, performing an acoustic set and answering questions from the audience.
