POCO

One of the first and longest-lasting country-rock groups, Poco had their roots in the dying embers of
Buffalo Springfield. After Neil Young and Stephen Stills, the co-founders of that group, exited in the spring of 1968, only guitarist/singer Richie Furay and bassist Jim Messina remained to complete the group's swan song, Last Time Around. The final Springfield track, "Kind Woman," included only Furay and Messina, with a guest appearance on steel guitar by Rusty Young -- at the time, he was something of a rarity as a talented lap-steel guitarist who was comfortable working in a rock idiom, and had previously belonged to a folk-rock-turned-psychedelic band called Boenzee Cryque. Young stuck with Furay and Messina, in the process skipping a scheduled audition for a new group that ex-Byrds member Gram Parsons was putting together. Auditions followed before the fledgling group reached out, at Young's urging, to ex-Boenzee Cryque drummer/vocalist George Grantham, and also to bassist/singer Randy Meisner, who had previously played with a band called the Poor. This lineup rehearsed for four months before making their debut at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, in November of 1968. A month later, they made their first appearance at the Fillmore West on a bill with the Steve Miller Band and Sly & the Family Stone.

At the time, they were using the name Pogo, but that didn't last. Walt Kelly, the creator of the comic strip Pogo, from which they'd freely admitted borrowing the name, didn't appreciate the group's choice and filed a lawsuit. Not wanting to lose all of the recognition and goodwill they'd built up locally over the previous five months, the result was a change of just one consonant, to Poco. They impressed everyone who heard them, but getting them a recording contract was itself a difficult proposition -- Meisner, Young, and Grantham weren't a problem, as they were essentially unsigned to any label, but Messina and Furay, as members of Buffalo Springfield, were most definitely tied to Atlantic Records. As it happened, Columbia Records was interested in the group -- and hovering somewhere around this situation was David Geffen, then a young talent agent who was fast on his feet and persuasive in his manner. He, in turn, was trying to sort out the contractual situation surrounding ex-Springfield guitarist/singer Stephen Stills, and his new association with ex-Byrds singer/guitarist David Crosby, and Graham Nash, formerly of the Hollies, who wanted to record together but had the reverse problem; Stills was signed to Atlantic by way of Buffalo Springfield (which very much wanted Crosby, Stills & Nash), while Crosby and Nash, through their previous memberships in the Byrds and the Hollies, respectively, were both tied contractually to Columbia Records. With Geffen acting as catalyst between Atlantic chief Ahmet Ertegun and Columbia president Clive Davis, Messina and Furay had their contracts traded to Columbia in exchange for Crosby and Nash going to Atlantic.
Poco ended up recording their debut album, Pickin' Up the Pieces, as a quartet, with Messina handling the bass parts. The album was issued in June of 1969 to enthusiastic reviews.
Poco was back to being a quintet in 1970 with the addition of bassist/vocalist Timothy B. Schmit, whose arrival coincided with the recording of their second album, Poco, on which he had two co-writing credits. The album showed the group pushing its range and received even better reviews at the time than its predecessor.
It wasn't long after that Messina decided to leave, feeling that Furay had started to exert too much control over the group's sound. Before departing, however, he secured the services of a more-than-capable replacement member, guitarist/singer Paul Cotton, a onetime member of the country band Illinois Speed Press, which had recorded for Epic. Messina also played on and produced their subsequent live album, Deliverin' -- the latter represented an interesting change in strategy for the label and the band, which, after two artistically successful albums, was now looking to present itself in the strongest light as possible. A live album consisting entirely of new material, Deliverin' offered the record-buying public a glimpse of the group's on-stage sound, which melded the excitement and energy of rock & roll with the lyricism and romanticism of country music. And it seemed to work to a degree, the album reaching number 26 and yielding a minor hit in "C'mon." Messina's departure left the group in need of a producer, and for their next album, From the Inside (1971), they turned to Booker T. & the M.G.'s guitarist Steve Cropper, who was an experienced producer but one mostly associated with Southern soul music. The resulting album had a heavier and more soulful sound than their earlier studio releases, but lacked the freewheeling spirit that had driven those albums. And, in a surprising development, this lineup -- Furay, Cotton, Young, Schmit, and Grantham -- last