Buffalo Springfield lasted just over two years before collapsing in 1968, but what the band lacked in longevity, it more than made up in talent: the influential band's first brief go-round served as an opening act for some of the biggest careers in rock, including Neil Young and Stephen Stills. Springfield guitarist Richie Furay, who founded Poco in the wake of the group's demise, was determined to achieve similar success.
Originally named Pogo before legal threats from cartoonist Walt Kelly forced a switch to Poco, the group started coming together during the piecemeal sessions for Buffalo Springfield's final album, 1968's Last Time Around. Needing a pedal steel player for his ballad "Kind Woman," Furay hooked up with guitarist Rusty Young; with Springfield producer Jim Messina joining on vocals and guitar, the group cemented its original lineup with Randy Meisner on bass and George Grantham on drums.
"I just knew that I still hadn't done anything I wanted to do," Furay told Sounds in 1972. "I knew I wanted another band but I had no idea I could put one together ... I didn't go off and get David Crosby and Graham Nash, you know, it all started right down at the very bottom -- nobody knew who Rusty was, nobody knew who George was, nobody knew who Tim was and nobody really knew who Jim was at the time. But even at that time there was a sort of pride thing, you know -- 'We're going to make it without having to reflect back on the Buffalo Springfield.'"
With a much more familiar pedigree than most new bands, Poco quickly found a receptive audience in L.A. "Everybody wanted to come see us," Young told Classic Bands. "Richie had really come up with the concept of the country/rock thing that wasn't being done. Everybody was ready to jump on the bandwagon. In the Troubadour there'd be a booth and there would be Ricky Nelson and Ozzie and Harriet. The whole gang would be there in their booth. The Smothers Brothers came down. George Harrison and John Lennon came down because they tried to sign us to Apple at one point. Pretty much all the L.A. people you can imagine would be in the audience on any given night."
"Probably my favorite was the very beginning with Randy, Jimmy, Richie and I. That was a great time," recalled Young. "I think the impact we had, whether people recognize it or not, that brought about the Eagles and brought about Ricky Nelson coming back into playing music, the whole genre ... it really came out of those days at the Troubadour when we hit. We were great, we were really something special. Unfortunately we didn’t even make it to the first album because Richie decided to let Randy go."
"I did that first album with them," Meisner told Rock History Music. "There was a thing where Richie Furay and I, we made the album, and then I called in and said, 'I want to come down and listen to the mixes.' Richie, for some reason, thought he and Jimmy Messina should just do it alone. I said, 'If that's the way it's going to be, then I don't feel like a member of the band,' and Richie said, 'Okay, you quit.' So then I left. It was just as simple as that."
Meisner's departure was just the first in what would fairly quickly become a long list of lineup changes for the band. In fact, as various ex-Poco members went on to find greater success in groups like the Eagles while their former bandmates continued to toil in the commercial minor leagues, Poco developed a (not entirely undeserved) reputation as an act that always seemed poised to grab the brass ring, but never seemed to be able to catch that big break. "It is too bad you don't get a check when someone steals your bass player," chuckled Young in an interview with Vintage Rock. "That'd set us all up, I'm sure."
Ironically, although Poco's sound fit right in with the country-inflected sound that was taking off on rock radio -- and even though the band included a number of musicians who'd helped start that trend -- Furay would come to regret being part of that scene.
"In the beginning, we wanted to call ourselves a country/rock band, I guess, because it seemed to be the thing that was taking shape at the time. And, actually, I think it really did hurt us a lot more than it helped us," Furay told Circus in 1971. "The minute somebody said 'Poco,' it was country. ... It's taken three years, man for us to break the image down that we're a country band."
As Furay saw it, the band had a sound all its own -- one that transcended genres. "If we had to be labelled, I'd want to be labelled a rock 'n' roll band. Or a musical band," he mused. "We definitely are under the title rock 'n' roll. We can play country, we can play rock, we can play folk, we can play blues, we can play jazz ... all of it's our own style. It's all Poco-rock, Poco-country, Poco-blues, Poco-folk, you know?" From: https://ultimateclassicrock.com/poco-pickin-up-the-pieces/
