(This post originally appeared on my other blog Strawberry Flats, which was dedicated to my love of roots music.)
The most rabid fans of California country-rock have long argued over which band invented the music. Was it the ISB, Buffalo Springfield, the Byrds or some other more obscure pioneer like the Stone Canyon Band? It’s a silly debate, but I do believe Gram Parsons, however awesome, gets too much credit at the expe
nse of other heavyweights, especially the under-appreciated Poco, which Richie Furay and Jim Messina formed (originally as Pogo) in 1968 after leaving the Springfield.* According to Barney Hoskyns, author of the exhaustive Hotel California, “If any one event can be said to have ignited L.A.’s country-rock scene it would have to be the debut show by Pogo at the Troubadour in November 1968… Everyone was there at the Troubadour to witness them, from Rick Nelson to Linda Ronstadt.” Indeed, Poco’s considerable influence (they released no less than five excellent albums between 1969 and ’73) can be heard in everything from Beachwood Sparks and the Jayhawks to George Strait and progressive bluegrass badasses like New Grass Revival. Simply listen to the 1973 masterpiece Crazy Eyes, and you’ll hear a band fusing country, rock, jazz, folk-pop and bluegrass. It’s a sweeping amalgamation.
In 1974 Furay left Poco (which carried on without him). He then joined the Souther Hillman Furay Band, a super-group consciously modeled after Crosby, Stills & Nash. After that debacle Furay went solo and went Christian. But he continues to tour with the excellent Richie Furay Band, as well as make guest appearance with the resilient Poco. Strawberry Flats recently talked with Furay about his role as a country-rock pioneer.
Strawberry Flats: So you’re a preacher in Colorado.
Richie Furay: I have a little church back here: Calvary Chapel of Broomfield, up in the foothills. I’ve actually had a church since 1983.
Do you sing in you church?
Yeah. My worship leader is one of the guys I write my music with. When the church first started, I did everything. I was the guy who swept the floor, gave the message, counseled the people, did the marry-em ‘n’ bury -em. I did everything. But we’ve gotten a little bit bigger. My partner now handles the worship team. But I got music in my blood, so I have to be up there. I just go up, stand in the background, play my guitar and sing.
Recently, it’s me going through my history, but part of my history is the music I’ve made over the last couple years. So I always put two or three of my devotional songs in the set. But most of it covers my secular history.
Al Perkins [pedal steel player for the Souther-Hillam-Furay Band turned you on to Christianity in the mid '70s. Even before that your music had a very white-light vibe, if you know what I mean.
Y'know, you're not the only one who's told me that. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but if it's there, that's fine. My friend Jim Mason, who wrote a tune on [my solo album from 2006] Heartbeat Of Love, said, “You’re the only guy I know who writes a sad song that makes you feel good.”**
That’s a really intense dichotomy.
I think it’s a sense of melody. I really think I have a sense of melody, and that helps sometimes.
Which is missing from a lot of music these days.
I know. I find myself listening to modern country most often. What we pioneered in the late ’60s and early ’70s is the popular country music of today.
I read somewhere that much of your touring these days is done to bring attention to Poco’s role as a pioneer of country-rock.
Well, I think Poco has been an overlooked entity. Glenn Frey sat in my living room, while I was rehearsing Poco in 1969. And [the Eagles] are the largest band in the world in some respects. So obviously Glenn picked up some things. He was very intent on being at our rehearsals every once in a while. I also believe Poco has a very deserved place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but how that stuff gets organized I really have no idea. Maybe we didn’t have the commercial success, but we certainly opened the doors for a lot of great music. And I have nothing against [the Eagles]. They’re a great band. Two of my bass players [Randy Meisner and Timothy B. Schmit] made it into the Eagles, but I do think Poco has a place in rock and roll history.
Poco is way better than the Eagles.
That’s all right by me!
I mean, I do like a bunch of Eagles stuff, but sometimes they’re a bit too soft and cheesy. As for country-rock, I love Gram Parsons, but at the same time he dominates the music’s history. Poco is overlooked, and so is Gene Clark.
What a talent, man.
So why do you think Poco wasn’t as successful as you would’ve liked them to have been?
Getting right out the box, we had problems with Clive Davis [then president of Columbia Records]. There was an issue over the original artwork [for our debut album, 1969's Pickin' Up the Pieces]. We had a guy working for us, Dickie Davis, so it became a fight between the Davises. From there, it just seemed to really be a struggle. [Clive Davis] locked us out of the studio, and if it wasn’t for David Geffen, there wouldn’t have been a second Poco record [1970's self-titled release]. But that knocked the wind out of [Clive Davis'] sails and his thrust to really get behind the band. Also, there was an invite to Woodstock, but we turned it down. That probably would’ve changed the course of history. And we just couldn’t lock into AM radio, and that’s what really pushed you over the top. When [1972's] A Good Feelin’ to Know didn’t become an AM hit, it really just sucker-punched me. Right then is when [the Eagles] “Take It Easy” came out. It was all about those hit records. That’s what brought you to the next place.
The Eagles were content with doing perfect, little pop songs, but Poco’s aesthetic covered everything. One minute you’re doing a pop tune, the next you’re launching into blues-jazz fusion jams. That might’ve been an issue. You guys were a little too out there for AM folks.
The musicianship in the band was just incredible, between what Rusty [Young] and Jimmy [Messina] could do on their instruments early on and certainly with Paul [Cotton] coming in later on. There was such a variety of music. People liked to pigeonhole us: “You’re this.” But we’d say, “No we’re not. We are that, but we’re this, too.” Don’t define us — we’re Poco. We’re just this little group that makes a lot of good music.
I’ve read there was considerable friction between you and [co-founder] Jim Messina.
Sometimes that stuff overtakes you, because you become so consumed with where you are at the time that you lose focus. When Jimmy and I put the band together, we said, “We’re never gonna let what happened to the Byrds happen to us.” Well, we didn’t even last as long as they did — two years. Jimmy’s comments — that I’ve heard — were that I wouldn’t let him express himself as much as he wanted to. Y’know, if that was the case, I didn’t know it at the time. But y’know, Jimmy and I have certainly crossed many bridges together, and we’re good friends. And with Randy, same thing. He thought he was slighted by being a member of the group, yet being denied access into the studio when we were mixing the first record. Whether or not that was the case, I don’t really remember. When you are mixing, the best environment is to have as few people as possible contributing. If Randy felt offended, my apologies go out to him. But who knows what happens when you’re young and blasting through, y’know? None of that is an issue anymore. It’s all water under the bridge. I look at Jimmy as a brother. I can have conflict with him, but by darn, you better not say anything bad about him. I’m gonna stand up for him.
You can kick your own dog but nobody else can.
That’s right, man.
What terms are you on with Poco nowadays?
I play with them every now and then. In fact, we played with them at the old Fillmore about three years ago. Back in May we did a concert with them. I’ll go out and do my set then I’ll come up and sing with them. We still do that. We’re on very good terms. Rusty and Paul were on [2006's Heartbeat of Love].
You played Hardly Strictly Bluegrass [a free Americana/roots rock festival in San Francisco] in 2006.
That was rocking. Elvis Costello was there. Nickel Creek, Emmylou [Harris] and us — just a lot of fun.
When you play concerts with mainstream country guys like George Strait and Alan Jackson, do they come up to you and mention that Poco was an influence. It’s interesting. It seems as if Poco and Pure Prairie League really influenced mainstream country.
I’m friends with Gene Elders, who plays fiddle with George’s Ace in the Hole band. He also plays with Lyle Lovett. And those guys [during the Stagecoach festival in Indio, California] came out when we played. They have definitely let me know that Poco was a big influence on their lives.
On that first Poco record, how do you get that crazy effect on the tune “Nobody’s Fool”? Were your vocals going through Leslie speakers?
Rusty played his pedal steel guitar through one of those, but I don’t know about vocals. But yes, Rusty definitely did, and that give it that real organ sound.
Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin get all the credit, but I swear your harmonies are going through a Leslie.
Man, I gotta go back and check that out. Maybe somebody did something I’m not aware of. If that’s the case, my mind is just zapped.
Notes:
*Furay was not a role player in the Buffalo Springfield. He was considered the band’s frontman. He also wrote much of the best material, including “Kind Woman,” one the most gorgeous fusions of country-rock and Southern soul.
**His old friend Neil Young also appeared on Heartbeat of Love.
Shawn Phillips feels like crap. Just five dates into a five-month tour — and that nasty super-flu destroying most of the country caught up with the cult singer-songwriter. “I lost my falsetto the day after I played Cedar Rapids [Iowa],” he says.
The death of No Depression, which drops its last issue in May, shouldn’t come as any surprise: Both print media and the music industry at large are choking to death like dinosaurs caked in volcanic ash. But there’s more to this story. What the magazine has championed since the mid-’90s — that stuff known as alt-country — has become more oppressively predictable and boring than even country’s perennially vacuous mainstream. The differences between the two camps have faded over the last several years. Whether it’s Ryan Adams or the Drive-By Truckers or Miranda Lambert or Big & Rich or some other drone, it’s all prefab suburban-development blah.
