Homecoming by America (1972).

This album cemented America as an excellent acoustic guitar and vocal harmony band. The electric guitars and California-based lyrics made this album a perfect picture of LA in the early 1970s.

“Ventura Highway” kicks off the album perfectly. The riff that defines this song is a wonderful combination of softness and assertion; it’s hard to forget, but it glides smoothly across the ears. Like other America tunes, such as “Tin Man,” this song relies on major seventh chords to create a lilting, haunting sound that came to define the best of this band. Dewey Bunnell wrote these songs.

“To Each His Own” is the second song, and it’s a good example of the balance that Gerry Beckley provided to Bunnell’s somewhat (but really, only somewhat) mysterious sounds and lyrics. This song is down to earth, in major chords.

Dan Peek adds “Don’t Cross the River,” a very nice country song. Among my favorite songs on this album is “Head and Heart,” written by John Martyn. America’s recording is very much like Martyn’s original; I prefer America’s, perhaps because I heard it first, but perhaps because the vocal harmonies are nice and George Martin produced the acoustic guitars so well.

Songs such as “Moon Song” and “Cornwall Blank” expand the album. The electric guitars and mild electronic effects on these songs add just enough to draw me in without the players pretending to be Hendrix. I love those songs.

America was produced by George Martin, who produced The Beatles. He accomplished a terrific recording of acoustic guitar on George Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun” on the Abbey Road album, and on this album the acoustic guitars sound similarly real. I love that.

“California Revisited” is a re-recording of “Everyone I Meet is from California,” and I don’t blame them.