Firefall

Firefall blended mellow, easygoing country-rock with a taste for pop melodies and soaring vocal harmonies, yielding multiple hit LPs throughout the late 1970s along with several charting singles, one of which reached the Top Ten: “You Are the Woman.” Commercial momentum had faded considerably by the arrival of their 1994 album Messenger, yet the band kept performing into the twenty-first century, sustaining a loyal following and issuing occasional live recordings. Twenty-six years after their previous studio effort, Firefall returned in 2020 with Comet.

Rick Roberts, formerly of the Flying Burrito Brothers, assembled the group in Boulder, Colorado, in 1974, taking lead vocals, guitar, and primary songwriting responsibilities. His initial collaborators included ex-Burrito Brother and Byrd Michael Clarke on drums, ex-Spirit and Jo Jo Gunne bassist Mark Andes, guitarist and vocalist Jock Bartley, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Larry Burnett, plus keyboardist and woodwind player David Muse, who came aboard in 1977. The self-titled debut appeared in 1976; both that record and its successor Luna Sea earned gold certification, while the third album Elan reached platinum. Despite these early triumphs, sales tapered off, and even Muse’s efforts to broaden the instrumental palette could not prevent the band’s relaxed, understated style from losing ground as prevailing pop fashions shifted. After an eleven-year recording hiatus, Bartley guided a revised lineup through Messenger in 1994. Performing as Firefall Acoustic, Bartley and vocalist-guitarist Steven Weinmeister issued the Beatles tribute Colorado to Liverpool in 2007. Bartley kept the Firefall name active on the road through the 2010s, eventually reinstating Andes and Muse alongside later drummer Sandy Ficca and guitarist-vocalist Gary Jones. That configuration produced the 2020 comeback album Comet, which surfaced in December. Multi-instrumentalist David Muse passed away on August 6, 2022, at age 73 following a cancer diagnosis.