and Poco never got the credit it deserved. They were playing country rock two years before The Eagles formed and made all the money. Poco had seven solid albums which never sold anywhere near as much as their record company or they themselves hoped. After multiple changes in personnel they finally started to sell with the 1978 album Legend. They were unable to duplicate the success of that album, though, and struggled on until they lost their recording contract.

If you’ve forgotten their personnel, they were Richie Furay and Jim Messina from Springfield, George Grantham and Rusty Young of Boenzee Cryque (a Denver act), and Randy Meisner of an LA band called The Poor. Meisner went on to play with Linda Ronstadt’s backing band and was a founding member of The Eagles. Messina went on to join Kenny Loggins in a very successful duo act for half-a-dozen years before going back to his full-time job as recording engineer and producer. Grantham and Young stayed with Poco for the next 35 years. Furay left the band and played briefly with J.D. Souther and Chris Hillman in the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band before its breakup. He became an evangelical Christian while with the SHF band and later released several solo albums in the Christian rock style.

Here’s one of Richie Furay’s best-known songs. It was the title track of the band’s fifth album.