We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming….

So, when we checked in on Buffalo Springfield in The California Sound (4) the group had broken up.  Richie Furay and Jim Messina took some tracks recorded prior to the breakup and used them to create a final contractually required Buffalo Springfield record that was appropriately titled Last Time Around.  Lets listen to Kind Woman, one of Richie’s songs that was included on that album.

This song, like many of the others on the album, was really more of a solo effort than a Buffalo Springfield song.  It featured Richie, Jim, and a pedal steel guitar player named Rusty Young who added to the country sound of the song.  Richie and Jim had a mutual love of the country sound reflected in Kind Woman and with the demise of Buffalo Springfield decided to form their own band, Poco, that could focus on that sound.  Rusty Young was a known quantity based on Kind Woman and was a natural for the new group as the pedal steel player. The group was completed with the addition of George Grantham on drums and Randy Meisner on bass.

As we mentioned in The California Sound (4) post, Richie Furay was “traded” to Epic records in a deal to free Graham Nash to join David Crosby and Stephen Stills on Atlantic Records, so Poco was of course signed to Epic records.  The groups first record for Epic was named Pickin Up The Pieces (I have always assumed that this was a reference to Richie and Jim starting over again after the collapse of Buffalo Springfield).  The music on the album was a natural progression from Richie’s and Jim’s contributions to Buffalo Springfield.  The album was not a huge commercial success but it is generally recognized as one of the earliest examples of the new country rock music genre that was starting to take shape.  From a song writing perspective, the album was dominated by Richie.  Here is  Pickin Up The Pieces, the title song from the album, written by Richie.

Let’s listen to You Better Think Twice from Jim and then we will talk about some changes in the group that took place even before the release of Pickin Up The Pieces.

The album triggered the first in a long running series of band personnel changes that continue through today.  When watching the two videos above, you might have noticed that someone was missing from the album cover illustration.  Randy Meisner had left (or was kicked out of) the band immediately before the album’s release and his image was removed from the album cover and replaced with the dog (that was pretty cold in my opinion).  Based on multiple sources that I have read, the root of the issues associated with Randy’s departure from the band was a disagreement between him and Richie about the mixing of the album.  Randy’s view of the situation is summarized on www.randymeisneronline.com “When Poco began recording its first album, Pickin’ Up the Pieces, Meisner realized how little the band’s founders Furay and Messina thought of him. They considered him little more than a session player, allowing him no input into the production of the songs. Dissatisfied, Meisner complained that he might as well not be a part of the band if that was the way they looked at him. They agreed, and fired him.”   We will check in with Randy’s career in future posts in The Southern California Sound series.

Looking at the following list of the various incarnations of Poco (thanks to Wikipedia for this list) will give you a better idea as to the number of personnel changes that have taken place in the band over time.

Poco Lineups Over Time (from Wikipedia Poco Article)

What was your favorite Poco lineup?  I can tell you that my favorite Poco music came from lineups from the early to mid-1970s.  We will check back in on Poco, and the fate of some of its members, in upcoming posts from The Southern California Sound series.  Look for the next post in the series sometime before next weekend.