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| Home > Reviews > Poco, Pure Prairie League - Red and Jerry's 3/18/06 |
| Poco, Pure Prairie League - Red and Jerry's 3/18/06 | | Date Created: Mar 19, 2006, 10:26 AM |
 Ah, the benefits of progressive radio stations getting started up (KCUV - Greenwood Village - more on this later), venues trying to get started with music acts, particularly ones like Poco (Red & Jerry's - Santa Fe and Oxford south of Denver), and friends with a background and interest in all kinds of music.
I saw Poco at Dillon Gym at Princeton University in about 1972. It was a concert sponsored the college radio station, WPRB Princeton, and it was around the time that their great album, Deliverin', came out. It was also around the time that Jimmy Messina left the group, but they were still in their prime. Great concert memory.
When their friends, The Eagles, became superstars and Poco failed to get above midlevel success, Ritchie Furay put everything into "A Good Feelin' To Know". The song and album also failed to attain strasospheric levels and Furay, the leader and guiding light after Messina left, started losing interest and eventually became an evangelical preacher in the Boulder area.
Reportedly Furay said he might make this gig of two of his old bandmates but he had to finish a sermon for Sunday first. He didn't make it but another legendary Boulder based band, Firefall sent a member to play guitar during the encore.
Both the new station, KCUV, and the old station, KBCO, interviewed Rusty Young on Saturday morning but it's a long way from Boulder to the suburbs south of Denver and the weather was starting up a spring rain/snowstorm.
Still, this was too good to pass up and although the stage grafted into what is a glorified pool hall and gameroom, wasn't ideal, you could sit at tables and drink with friends while watching near 60 country-rockers try to relive past glories.
Craig Fuller, who looks a bit like Davey Jones of the Monkees, was the leading light of Pure Prairie League and he's back with two old members of the band. (Pure Prairie League went through so many personnel changes it's hard to say who was in it). Fuller was in Little Feat for awhile too.
A young drummer and pedal steel/mandolin/violin player rounded it out and the sound was a bit ragged and unrehearsed. Fuller has written some new songs but they played the hits too. "Amie" and "Boulder Skies" brought a tear to the eye.
Poco became Rusty Young's band after Furay pulled out and he's kept it alive with the same spirit and drive heard on Deliverin'. Initially hired as a pedal steel player, Young became a songwriter and vocalist and plays some lap and standard guitar too. Apparently balding (my friend noted that all the members of Pure Prairie League still had their hair), Young kept a baseball cap on backwards the entire night but he was pushing Cotton and the others as well as the crowd and they sounded more polished and practiced.
Young was an original of the band and Paul Cotton joined later to replace Jimmy Messina. Cotton came from a group called Illinois Speed Press and brought a song with him called "Bad Weather". One of my all time favorites, Young told the story of how Cotton first played his song to the group at Ritchie Furay's house in Laurel Canyon and then Cotton played it the same way. Now that brought more than one tear to the eye.
So it was all worth it even if aging country-rockers and a few members of old groups aren't your thing. I'll have to check out Poco's latest live album recorded in Bozeman, Montana, called "Bareback at Big Sky". Meanwhile, there's always "Deliverin'"
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| Song Name |
Time |
Artist |
Album |
Genre |
Size |
| Bad Weather |
05:05 |
Poco |
The Forgotten Trail, (1969-1974) |
Rock |
4.8 MB |
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