n July, 1976, Seals & Crofts were sitting in the Top 10 with their #6 hit "Get Closer." Two months later, Seals's brother, England Dan Seals, helped take another duo all the way to #2.

Dan Seals and John Colley were both members of a group called Southwest F.O.B., which reached #56 in 1968 with the song "Smell of Incense." While they were members of the band, the two singers sowed the seeds of their partnership. "We realized that we write and sang well together," Dan Seals explained in the liner notes to their anthology, The Very Best Of England Dan & John Ford Coley. "At that point, we started emulating people like James Taylor rather than Jimi Hendrix. The two of us would open shows for Southwest F.O.B. with an acoustic set, and that was the beginning of England Dan and John Ford Coley."

Austin, Texas pop duo England Dan & John Ford Coley's 1976 single "I'd Really Love To See You Tonight" was the first of their six Top 40 singles, reaching No. 2 in Sept. 1976 and remaining on the charts for 17 weeks. It was taken from their first album on Big Tree Records, Nights Are Forever, which first charted on Aug. 21, 1976, peaking at No. 17 and remaining on the Hot 200 album chart for 31 weeks. It was certified gold by the R.I.A.A. on Dec. 1, 1976.

The duo was initially called Colley and Wayland for John's last name and Dan's middle name, respectively. Dan's brother Jim, the Seals of Seals & Crofts, came up with a new title for the pair. John recalled, "When the Beatles came out, Dan would walk around talking in an English accent. Jim came up with 'England Dan,' and he added 'Ford' to my name. And since people had a hard time pronouncing 'Colley,' we changed that to 'Coley'."

Signed to A&M Records, the group managed only one minor hit, the #101 "New Jersey." By the mid-1970s, A&M dropped the duo, so they went looking for a new deal. The key to their future success was a song written by Parker McGee called "I'd Really Love To See You Tonight."

Susan Joseph, the group's manager, brought the song to Dan and John, who liked it enough to record it as a demo. John remembered, "Susan thought this was a song for us. So [producer] Louie Shelton came in and did a rough version of it with us, and they took it around. Finally, it got to Bob Greenberg, an executive at Atlantic. After he'd listened to it in his office, Doug Morris, an executive from Big Tree Records walked in -- he had an office next door, and he'd heard the song through the wall. Doug said, "Well, what do you think of the song, Bob?' And Bob said, 'I think I'm going to have to pass." So Doug said, 'We want it,' and he offered us a deal."

"I'd Really Love To See You Tonight" entered the charts at #89. The song took 16 weeks to climb the charts, but the duo was ultimately rewarded with a #2 hit -- kept from #1 by Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music."

The group's next hit, "Nights Are Forever Without You," returned the duo to the Top 10. Two more Top 10 singles ("We'll Never Have To Say Goodbye Again" and "Love Is The Answer") followed, but as the 1980s began, the duo had run its course. England Dan went on to a successful solo career on the country charts, where he scored nine straight #1 singles. One of these, "Bop," also crossed over to the pop charts, just missing the Top 40 at #42.

In the early 2000s, England Dan embarked on various tours with his brother Jim, billing themselves as Seals & Seals, and performing their successful hits from Seals & Crofts and England Dan & John Ford Coley, Dan's hits from his solo career, and a few original songs written between the two brothers.

In 2008, Dan completed radiation treatments for cancer (mantle cell lymphoma) at cancer treatment centers in Nashville and Houston, and received a stem cell transplant at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Maryland. He died on March 25, 2009, at his daughter's home in Nashville. He was 61.

After the duo disbanded in 1980, John formed another group that released an album on A&M Records, and acted in teen films in the 1980s. In the next decade he acquired a small ranch and wrote songs for film and television, and returned to touring in 1996. In 1999, he moved his family and horses across country to Tennessee to be part of the music community. Once a Bahá'í, he converted back to Christianity and continues to perform internationally.

- Christopher G. Feldman, The Billboard Book of No. 2 Singles, Billboard, 2000.