Tag Archives: Poco

Furay’s little bit of magic

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I expected to see a good performance from Richie Furay Friday night at Stage One in Fairfield, but I was taken back by just how good.

richie-furay-live-2-small1With a five-piece band that includes multi-instrumentalist Scott Sellen and Furay’s daughter Jesse Lynch, Furay played a set that traveled from his past to the present, playing many songs that helped lay down the country-rock tradition, leaning heavily on rock, and are rarely played by any band today.

This is not just an aging musician running through songs with which he is associated. This is an extraordinary band.

When the opening song started with drummer Alan Lemke laying down a beat on his tom toms, I asked myself is that what I think it is? It was. This little band was playing Crazy Eyes, a Poco epic from the album of the same name from 1973. And the arrangement didn’t lack one bit.

Furay’s voice was full, clear and able to scale the heights he has always been known for on a song that demands it from the start. Every time I looked to the left of the stage Sellen was playing a different instrument. First electric piano, then banjo, then lap steel guitar and electric guitar. Continue reading Furay’s little bit of magic →

Under The Radar: Poco

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Poco, one of the first country-rock bands to achieve artistic and some commercial success in the late 1960s and early ’70s, is certainly not completely under the radar. But their early catalogue to some extent apparently is.

poco-original-album-classicsThe group that came from the splintering of Buffalo Springfield, with singer/songwriter-guitarist Richie Furay and guitarist-producer Jim Messina from the Springfield joining with pedal steel player Rusty Young, drummer George Grantham and bassist Randy Meisner, produced some of the most pleasing harmonies, hottest picking and well-written songs in the early days of country-rock.

By the time first Meisner, who is credited on the first album but was out by the time it was released, then Messina, Furay, and later addition bassist Timothy B. Schmit had departed, the group recorded six outstanding albums. Poco has marched on over the years, made some interesting records and is together today with Young and Paul Cotton, who replaced Messina, still in the band. They enjoy a loyal following and have actually staged some reunion gigs with original members this year.

When a few years ago, it came time for me to track down the early records that I liked so much, I found it wasn’t easy finding what I wanted as the CDs released in the early ’90s were scarce. In Europe, Beat Goes On Records issued a number of two-fers of these albums but I was unsure about the mastering quality. Continue reading Under The Radar: Poco →

Neil Young’s Archive: Buffalo Springfield

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In addition to the three Topanga discs and Early Years (1963-65), I’ve been listening to the Buffalo Springfield disc quite a bit from Neil’s Young’s recently released Archives Box Set.

ny-archive-springfield-coverDisc 1 in the 10-disc set, which I have in DVD format, is titled Early Years (1966-68) and is dedicated to the mid-to-late ’60s group that many of its fans lament over for its short tenure on the rock scene, about two years.

The Springfield were truly one of the great rock groups of the ’60s, but let’s face it, it had too many creative forces within, if that’s possible: namely Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and Young. It made for a powerful combination — but only for a while.

The Springfield made two memorable albums, their self-titled debut and Buffalo Springfield Again, during which the group started to fracture. As Young says in a radio interview included on the disc, the third record Last Time Around was not a Buffalo Springfield album at all. It does contain two notable songs from Young, I Am A Child and On The Way Home, which he doesn’t sing lead on, but it’s disjointed.

It’s kind of amusing hearing Young rip Jim Messina, the Springfield’s second bass player, for ruining the mix on the album, since he would shortly use Messina and George Grantham, both of Poco, to record his first solo album. And Young adds that he and Stills really had nothing to do with the album at all. So Disc 1 is culled mainly from the first two Springfield albums with I Am A Child the only track from the third. Continue reading Neil Young’s Archive: Buffalo Springfield →