Jon Carroll

In the Starland Vocal Band, the group behind the No. 1 pop hit “Afternoon Delight,” he sang and played keyboards and guitar. The band won two Grammy Awards at the 1977 ceremony, Best New Artist and Best Arrangement for Voices, the second for Carroll’s work as arranger. That summer the group hosted a six-week CBS variety series, The Starland Vocal Band Show.

Carroll wrote “Get Closer” soon after the band broke up, coming up with its riff during a session at Bias Recording. Bill Danoff, the band’s leader and Carroll’s manager, played his demo for Linda Ronstadt, who made it the title track and first single of her 1982 album Get Closer; the single reached No. 29 on the Billboard Hot 100. His songs have also been recorded by Tom Jones and Kenny Rogers.

In the late 1980s he played on Mary Chapin Carpenter’s early albums, Hometown Girl (1987) and State of the Heart (1989), and on Tony Rice’s Rounder album Native American (1988). On that record he played piano and keyboards on four tracks, among them Ian Tyson’s “Summer Wages” and Joni Mitchell’s “Urge for Going,” and sang harmony on James Taylor’s “Nothin’ Like a Hundred Miles.” He also appears on The Rice Brothers (1989) and Larry Rice’s Artesia (1990). Besides his long stint with Carpenter, he has toured with Rodney Crowell, the Dixie Chicks and Peter Wolf, and he has received more than 20 awards from the Washington Area Music Association.