By
Richie Unterberger
By the
beginning of autumn 1971, Poco had become arguably the most popular of
the first-generation country-rock bands. Issued at the beginning of the
year, their live album Deliverin'
had cracked the Top Thirty. Their dynamic stage act blended rock and
country with sterling harmonies, seamlessly integrating pedal steel
into rock's standard guitar-bass-drums instrumental format. That live
act is captured in sparkling sound on this hour-long CD of previously
unreleased material, recorded at Columbia Studios in Hollywood on
September 30, 1971.
This wasn't
exactly a typical concert. At the time, the group's fourth LP, From the Inside, had just been
released, and Poco were gearing up toward some of the most important
shows of their young career, which took place on the weekend just after
this performance (on October 1 and October 2) at the Santa Monica Civic
Auditorium. This "show" at Columbia Studios was something like a
showcase for their label, family, and friends, though the group put
just as much heart into their playing and singing as they would to a
far bigger audience.
As Poco singer-guitarist Richie Furay explains
today, "I think it was simply a time for the CBS family [Poco being
signed to CBS subsidiary Epic at the time] to get to know us better.
Certainly it was an opportunity to 'personally' thank the folks at CBS
for the support they had given us and to let them see and hear us 'up
close and personal.' We set up just like we would have for a small
club. The audience consisted of a hundred or so people made up of CBS
employees (executives, those marketing and promoting the band), our
personal families, and friends. We had made a few changes from the
beginning as far as band members, and it was an opportunity for 'the
company' to hear the direction we were headed." It was also good
preparation for the concerts just around the bend: "Doing the show at
CBS was a good opportunity for us to run through the set and work out
any 'bugs.' It was a big deal for us to be playing two nights at the
Santa Monica Civic Auditorium."
Poco had only been playing for about three years,
but they'd already been through a few personnel changes, though three
of their five founder members were still aboard. When they came
together in late 1968, their lineup included Furay, guitarist-singer
Jim Messina (who'd played alongside Furay in the latter days of Buffalo
Springfield), drummer-singer George Grantham, pedal steel player Rusty
Young, and bassist-singer Randy Meisner. Future Eagle Meisner left
shortly before the release of their debut album, however, and Poco
played as a quartet for a while before adding another future Eagle,
bassist-singer Tim Schmit. In late 1970, Messina was replaced by
guitarist-singer Paul Cotton of the Illinois Speed Press, putting into
place the quintet lineup you hear on this CD.
There's still a lot of country-rock in Poco's
performance, but Furay agrees that "the band was definitely moving
towards more of an edgier rock sound. A lot of that had to do with
Paul’s background, although I think we all adapted to the various
sounds of our music." Rusty Young proved especially vital to Poco with
his pedal steel, here comfortably integrated into both country-rock and
straightahead hard-charging rock, sometimes even approximating the
sound of a B-3 organ. "Rusty took an instrument that was pretty much
exclusively a 'country' instrument and introduced it to the world of
rock and roll," feels Furay. "He got a lot of people interested in
playing that instrument who probably never would have picked it up."
Adds Richie, "The more we were able to work Paul into the set was
important at this time as well. He hadn't been with us very long and it
was a time to show the direction we were heading. Having Paul in the
band as Jimmy’s replacement gave us a stronger vocal presence. He also
took pressure off of me as far as being the main lead
singer/songwriter."
The fourteen songs are a solid cross-section of
tunes that had appeared on Poco's first four albums, though
understandably heaviest on the songs that had appeared on the third and
fourth. "What a Day" had been a highlight of their groundbreaking 1969
debut Pickin' Up the Pieces,
and "Hurry Up" had kicked off 1970's self-titled follow-up. "I Guess
You Made It," "A Man Like Me," "C'mon," "Hear That Music," and a medley
of "Hard Luck/Child's Claim to Fame/Pickin' Up the Pieces" had been on Deliverin', an unusual live album
in that the majority of the LP was devoted to originals making their
first appearance on record. The remaining seven songs hailed from From the Inside, which the band
were unsurprisingly keen to push as it had just been released that very
month.
While the medley had appeared on Deliverin', it made ingenious use
of a couple songs that had first been issued on earlier LPs. "Pickin'
Up the Pieces" was, of course, the title track of Poco's first album,
while Furay's "Child's Claim to Fame" had first been released way back
in 1967 on Buffalo Springfield's second LP. "With each new album we
always wanted to present the newer material to our live audiences, but
you always have to balance that with older, familiar songs," observes
Furay. "We found it was easy to accomplish this in a medley format. I
still do it today for my live shows. The people get to hear the
old favorites while we stay 'fresh' with the newer songs."
As one of era's more concise and song-oriented
bands, Poco were not apt to indulge in much onstage jamming, but did
take the opportunity to stretch some of the tunes out into slightly
longer arrangements. "There were exceptional musicians in Poco, and
'stretching' out a song gave Rusty and Paul a chance to show off their
talent," says Richie. "We worked hard to make the arrangements of our
songs interesting. It wasn’t just to 'kill time' on stage—it was all
worked out. I'm not saying each note was the same every night, but the
arrangements and the 'bed rhythm' track was the same—we knew where we
were going. It was the current standard at the time to play extended
solos so we got on board with that from the very beginning with our
second album." You can hear some of that in the set-closing "C'mon," a
number lasting just over three minutes on Deliverin' (in a version released
as a small hit single in 1971), but here breaking the five-minute mark.
As another change of pace, the band went into an
acoustic-oriented interlude of sorts about halfway through the program
with "You Are the One" and "Bad Weather." "This part of the set always
brought a little different energy—kind of a 'living room' feeling that
would bring the audience 'in' to the performance," comments Richie. "It
was fun to give the set a little breathing room, if you will—to step
back from the 'in your face' electric guitars and focus on the vocals."
This lineup of Poco remained together until mainstay
Furay left in late 1973. With numerous lineup changes, the group's
continued to perform and record over the last four decades, though it's
their early work with Furay that marks them as one of country-rock's
most important bands. "One of the unique things about Poco, though we
were the innovators of the L.A. 'country-rock' sound, we weren't going
to be pigeonholed into being a one-sound band," Richie notes. "We
enjoyed experimenting with the different influences we each had to
create our own sound. Interestingly, there were many groups who copied
us, but we were the innovators; we paved the way." – Richie Unterberger
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