Seals and Crofts About to Pass This Way Again : Music: The hit soft-rock duo of the ‘70s is touring together for the first time in more than a decade, with new material and a tougher sound.

SAN DIEGO —  “All of this is still pretty new to us; tonight is only our third gig,” said the long-distance caller. “Who knows, we might get up on stage and find ourselves singing in the key of X.”

The musician’s voice crumbled into the self-effacing laugh of a novice, a fact made all the more endearing because the voice belonged to singer-guitarist Jimmy Seals--a veteran of more than 30 years in the music business and partner to singer-mandolinist Dash Crofts in one of the 1970s’ most popular soft-rock recording acts, Seals and Crofts. The duo, which hasn’t toured in 11 years, will perform Wednesday at Sound FX (formerly the Bacchanal).

“Our music is very difficult to perform, because it’s a combination of softer acoustic and harder electric sounds,” the affable Seals said in a soft drawl. “It requires the right technicians and the kind of sound system you can tweak one way or the other to make it right. Plus, we’re in the beginning stages of trying out some new material, so, at the moment, I feel like our live show is still coming off the presses.”

If Seals makes it sound as though he and fellow Texan Crofts, both 51, are innocents entering a brave new world, in a sense they are. The pop music world has changed a lot since the harmonizing twosome racked up such melodic folk-pop hits as “Summer Breeze,” “Diamond Girl,” “Hummingbird,” “Get Closer” and “We May Never Pass This Way (Again).” In fact, changes occurring in the music business during the late ‘70s are what prompted their decade-long retreat from the spotlight.

“At the beginning of our 10-year run of success, we had something like 300 original songs to work with,” said Seals, the duo’s tunesmith. “Of those, we selected about 40 songs that we thought were album-worthy. Then, as we went along, I’d write maybe four or five new songs each year. But, as we used those up, it became harder and harder to maintain the standards we’d set for ourselves. Then dance music came in very heavy, and radio programming changed to accommodate it.”

The disco era, as well as the emergence of punk, spelled doom for the delicate sounds of ‘70s troubadours. Seals and Crofts tried their hands at danceable material, and, in 1978, they even reached No. 18 on the national charts with the disco-ish “You’re the Love,” co-written by David Batteau and the duo’s producer, Louie Shelton. But the performers didn’t really want to commit themselves to that sound.

“We had no follow-up single to ‘You’re the Love,’ and the rest of the album it was on (‘Takin’ It Easy’) was very different,” Seals said. “Finally, we just said, hey, this is a great time to sit back and rest for a while. In retrospect, that was a wise decision.”

The two went their separate ways for most of the ‘80s. Crofts and his wife and two children lived in Mexico and Australia before settling in Hendersonville, Tenn., (near Nashville) where they live today.

Seals and his wife and three children moved to Costa Rica to assist with some of the teaching activities of the Baha’i faith, a religion (founded in 1863 by the Persian prophet Baha’u’llah) that emphasizes the spiritual unity of mankind. (Seals and Crofts both converted to the Baha’i faith in 1969). There, the Seals family bought a relatively small but fully functioning coffee plantation.

“Costa Rica is a beautiful, do-it-yourself sort of place,” Seals said of the Central American country he still calls home. “There are miles and miles of virgin beaches, and there’s a very natural feel to everything. We were out there picking coffee beans and working the farm, and it was a great way of getting to know the people, who are very friendly. Plus, I set up a little writing and recording studio for myself because I wanted to make some transitions in my songwriting.”

Seals is also helping the local music scene make the transition into the 20th Century. Not long ago, the efforts of young Costa Ricans to develop their own musical culture from shards of reggae, rock, R&B; and other forms got a big spiritual boost when the Amnesty International tour took such major music stars as Sting, Peter Gabriel and Tracy Chapman there. According to Seals, the small republic still lacks a circuit of venues at which home-grown musicians can perform on a regular basis.

Since the early ‘80s, the only time Seals and Crofts have performed together was four years ago, when they gave a world- peace-oriented concert at the Baha’i Center in Los Angeles for the film and music community. At that time, they also made the rounds of Canadian radio stations and some early-morning American talk shows to promote something called the Peace Document.

Considering how long it’s been since they last concertized, Seals’ admission of beginners’ jitters was less surprising than his revelation about their current live sound, which he claims is a little tougher than it once was.

“I feel like I have a split personality,” he said, laughing. “Dash and I came from a background of playing rock ‘n’ roll, Latin rock, blues and even a little jazz, and we ended up getting this reputation for singing more delicate music. But we still like to satisfy those harder urges, and I’m not always sure the audiences at our concerts like that so much. They come to hear the singles and the softer stuff, and we’re trying to achieve a balance.”

One means to that end is their five-piece backup band (two keyboards, guitar, drums, bass), the largest group ever to tour with the duo. As before, Seals plays sax, fiddle and acoustic guitar, and Crofts plays an electric mandolin. But Seals allowed that it’s not just the instrumentation that has thickened since they last toured.

“I feel that our vocal sound is better than it used to be--it’s thicker, stronger,” he said. “We still don’t sing like (Journey’s) Steve Perry or someone whose voice can cut through anything, so we’ve almost become scientists in the area of arranging the mid-range instrumentation on our songs to sound full without burying the vocals. It’s an ongoing experiment. But, then, Seals and Crofts itself began as an experiment.”

Indeed, the duo’s story weaves a serpentine path so unlikely it could only happen in rock ‘n’ roll. You can trace it all the way back to singing cowboy and film star Gene Autry.

In the late ‘50s, Autry started his own record label, Challenge Records, whose first recording artist was country songwriter and guitarist Dave Burgess. In 1958, Burgess wrote and recorded a song called “Train to Nowhere.” He and the studio musicians threw together a B-side instrumental called “Tequila,” written by saxophonist Chuck Rio, and released the single.

Four weeks later, “Tequila” was such a hit that Burgess put a road group together. While on tour as the Champs, Burgess and Rio had a falling-out, and the saxophonist left the band, taking drummer Gene Alden with him. Burgess had heard a Texas recording on which Seals and Crofts had played sax and drums, respectively, and the duo soon joined the Champs.

Eventually, Burgess wanted to get off the road to concentrate on producing records, and he sought a replacement. In 1960, while the Champs were performing a concert in Albuquerque, Burgess auditioned a young guitarist named Glen Campbell, who was playing nearby at his uncle’s club, the Hitchin’ Post. Campbell joined the Champs three weeks later in Los Angeles, where his guitar skills soon earned him regular work as a session musician. Campbell stayed in Hollywood and later became a major recording star.

In 1965, Seals and Crofts left the Champs, and a year later they formed the Dawnbreakers with guitarist Louie Shelton and bassist Joey Bogan. The group was augmented by a vocal trio, the Day Sisters. In time, Billie Lee Day married Crofts and Marcia Day became Seals and Crofts’ manager. Seals picks up the story:

“Dash and I would finish playing a gig with the Dawnbreakers, then we’d go home and play these songs we’d been working on for our own enjoyment,” he said. “One morning, Marcia Day heard us singing in the next room, and asked if we’d thought about recording that material. We hadn’t, because we didn’t think it was commercial music.”

Eventually, Seals and Crofts recorded some of those songs for the smallish TA label, and their casual concerts (one of which was a Sunday afternoon gig at UC San Diego’s Revelle Plaza in September, 1970) earned them an underground following. In a sense, Seals and Crofts had taken the minstrel-duo baton from Simon and Garfunkel, who were then in the process of breaking up.

Before long, the duo’s tight harmonies and intricate guitar-mandolin interplay were opening shows for major groups such as Chicago, Procol Harum and the Moody Blues. That exposure led to their signing a deal with Warner Bros. Records, and the rest, as they say . . .

“We had a great 10-year run, and we learned a lot,” Seals said. “And we’re still learning. On the other hand, getting out and doing this again is like putting on a comfortable, old coat.”