One of John Ford Coley’s earliest music memories involves an unlikely place. As a young boy, he would accompany his father on trips to the barbershop. While his father got his hair cut, Coley would use the chair’s footrest as a piano and pretended to practice. At just 6 years old, the young Coley set out on a mission to become a pianist.
During his childhood he took piano lessons and dove into the world of classical music. He studied Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach—two of his favorite composers—and many of classical music’s essential artists.
At home, he was surrounded by what he describes as an “eclectic” mix of music. “I was raised with opera, and classical, and a lot of church music,” Foley told The Epoch Times, naming treasured American songwriter Stephen Foster as another early influence. “Dad had this love for ... those sorts of music,” he said.
Coley’s classical music training helped him develop dexterity and a greater mental capacity for intricate compositions. “It’s left brain, right brain. And so you’ve got both sides of the hands, or the brain, working independently of the other one. So the right hand’s doing this, the left hand’s doing that,” he said of learning the classical tradition. “And you try to figure out how they all come together. … I was very fortunate that my parents gave me that kind of training.”
A Hit-Making Duo
Coley’s career spans more than five decades, and, in the 1970s, he dedicated his time to performing as a duo with fellow musician Dan Seals. Known as England Dan and John Ford Coley, the pair’s collaborations in the studio produced years of honey-smooth charting hits. And in the early summer of 1976, Coley and Seals would experience worldwide success with the release of their single, “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight.”
The romantic track climbed all the way to the top spot on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart and reached the No. 2 spot on Billboard’s Hot 100. The song made its way around the world and became popular in the United Kingdom. It even became a top hit in Jerusalem.
When Coley was contacted about recording a 50th anniversary edition of their hit for a tribute album honoring Seals, who passed away in 2009 following a battle with cancer, he found himself revisiting memories of their time recording together.
Coley has plenty of funny stories, and one in particular has to do with how Seals got ready to sing in the studio. “Dan would clear his throat on volume 10 every single time that he would step up to the microphone. And it would blow the stuff off the wall,” Coley shared, saying the noise would bring laughter to the room.
Tackling Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’
Embracing an eclectic array of music as a child resulted in Coley cultivating an eclectic spirit as a man. The former English literature major and lifelong history buff has also spent his time learning karate and perfecting his boxing skills when not on stage or in the studio. And though he’s an experienced performer, he still takes music as seriously as the day he embarked on his first lesson.He’s currently tackling Beethoven’s famous “Moonlight Sonata” on piano. And as far as his six-string goes, after an experience being told he couldn’t take his guitar with him while traveling abroad, he shared he’ll never travel without it again. “I did it once. I said, ‘Never again.’ Because, I said, ‘What am I going to do [in] the airport? What am I going to do in the hotel room?’” he shared. “I play,” he said, adding that his priority when he gets to his hotel room is taking his guitar out of the case.
When asked about the secret behind creating one of contemporary music’s enduring careers, he said the will to continue is the most important thing. “I used to take rejection letters and tape them to my wall, and pretty much say, ‘Yeah, watch this,’” he said. “You’ve just got to have a lot of drive.”
Nowadays, Coley can enjoy the moment a bit more. With a decades-long career still going strong with tour dates and fresh releases, it’s not so much sheer willpower that keeps him going, though he certainly still has plenty of it. Now, what keeps him on the road and in the studio is a sense of devotion. “I love music,” he shared. “I just love to play.”
