Dash Crofts

American singer, drummer, mandolinist, and songwriter.
Born August 14, 1938, in Cisco, Texas, USA.
Died March 25, 2026, in Austin, Texas, USA.
He started on piano and switched to drums as a boy. In the late 1950s he met saxophonist Jim Seals in the West Texas band Dean Beard And The Crew Cats. Both joined The Champs, with whom Crofts played from 1958 to 1965, interrupted by two years of service in the US Army from 1962. He later worked as a session musician and played with Glen Campbell in The GCs and with The Dawnbreakers, through which he and Seals were introduced to the Bahá'í Faith, which went on to shape much of their songwriting.
In 1969 the two formed the soft rock duo Seals & Crofts, with Crofts moving from drums to mandolin and guitar. Their fourth album, "Summer Breeze" (1972), brought the commercial breakthrough, its title track reaching number 6 in the US, as did "Diamond Girl" the following year. Further hits included "We May Never Pass This Way (Again)", "I'll Play For You" and "Get Closer". The duo split up after "The Longest Road" (1980), reunited for about a year in the early 1990s and again in 2004 for the album "Traces". Crofts released one solo album, "Today", in 1998, and later raised Arabian horses.