'It Started as a Joke': Sanford-Townsend Band's 'Smoke From a Distant Fire'
'200 Greatest 70s Rock Songs' Book Excerpt
By 1976, keyboardists Ed Sanford and Johnny Townsend had reunited in Los Angeles after working together in a short-lived band called Heart (not to be confused with Ann and Nancy Wilson’s band). Essentially a songwriting duo, they signed a publishing deal with Chappell Music and had some success, writing “Peacemaker” for Loggins and Messina.
A demo tape the two recorded made it to producer Jerry Wexler, which led to a recording contract with Warner Bros. The band’s self-titled debut album was recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios and included their biggest and only hit, “Smoke from a Distant Fire.”
Johnny Townsend told Classic Bands that the song “started as a joke.”
“We had a meeting with a publisher that day we were going to play some songs for. I was sharing half a house with this other friend of ours from Montgomery, Steven Stewart. One morning I came over to pick Ed up and he hadn’t slept because Stephen had been up all night long with his music stand in front of him, practicing Bach on his classical guitar [laughs].
“Ed just made some comment, ‘When you gonna quit playing that crap and write something that’s gonna make you some money?’ He had his guitar around his neck at that time. He started playing this amazing rhythm & blues riff. It would be something like from a Jackie Wilson song. I’m going, ‘Now that’s cool! Play that again.
“And I went to the piano, and we figured it out on the piano. I said, ‘Hey, this really nice.’ So, Ed and I sat down and started writing some lyrics. We didn’t finish it that day, but the next day I was coming back into town. We had another meeting that afternoon and getting off the freeway a line came to me from a poem Ed had written in college about a lost girlfriend. We didn’t use anything except the title ‘Smoke From A Distant Fire,’ and the song just came about. It started as a joke, but it just came about. When we finished it, we knew we really had something then.”
“Smoke” was to be the Sanford-Townsend Band’s biggest success. “We toured for about eight years and went all over the world and shared the stage with a lot of premier acts of that time like Fleetwood Mac, the Marshall Tucker Band, Jimmy Buffett, Foreigner, and others,” Townsend told Rebeat. “Ed later co-wrote ‘I Keep Forgettin'’’ with Michael McDonald, but eventually, we too went our separate ways.
“I still get a thrill out of playing ‘Smoke From a Distant Fire.’ Everybody still likes it, and it always gets a great reaction. I remember when we played in Myrtle Beach, and there was a great crowd. After we played the song, people came up and said, ‘You sound just like that guy who sang that song,’ and I’d say, ‘Well, that’s because I am that guy!’ Other people would say, ‘I never knew you guys were white!’ For someone with my musical roots, that’s one of the greatest compliments I could ever have.”
Frank Mastropolo is the author of the Greatest Songs series and Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever. For more on our latest projects, visit Edgar Street Books.