My Ten Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Snubs: Poco (#4)

Tweet

Oh, who didn’t know this was coming? Continuing with my list of those I see as a glaring omission from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, today’s entry, like previous entries (and many of Scott’s entries when he did a similar countdown), relies more heavily on influence. And here they are! #4: Poco Country-rock. If you grew up in the late 60s to mid-70s you knew it. You may not have loved it, but you couldn’t escape it. Back then, country and rock still had more in common than not: Gene Pitney did albums with George Jones, and another Jones (Tom [see John’s “purr-fect song” entry today]) had hits with country songs (“Green, Green Grass of Home”). Heck, even the Beatles recorded a Buck Owens song, and CCR referenced him in a song (“Lookin’ Out My Back Door”). Folkies like John Denver and Don Williams found an easy transition from folk to country. An explosion of styles occurred in pop music in 1967, with the pieces falling in places as diverse as San Francisco (where you could hear “acid rock,” blues rock, hard rock, or the eccentric music that was the Grateful Dead), L.A., and New York. In Los Angeles the mood became “mellower” than what was happening up the coast. Band began experimenting with a different fusion of sounds: country and rock. Enter Poco. Definitely not the first (in fact, one of Poco’s founders, Richie Furay, came from the ashes of Buffalo Springfield), but definitely one of the most influential. While other acts were “experimenting” with a country-rock sound (such as when Gram Parsons joined the Byrds and they made their legendary Sweetheart of the Rodeo album), Poco made that sound their mission. They began with an announcement on the title track of their first album: “There’s just a little bit of magic in the country music we’re playing, so let’s begin.” Lot of other acts in Los Angeles at the time took notice and began incorporating country-rock flavor into their musical burgoo. Among them: Linda Ronstadt, who had a backing band who’d take country-rock to new levels. That band was the Eagles. Poco had good success, but not a lot of “mainstream” superstardom. Still active today, 51 years after their formation, their contributions to an entire sub-genre of rock earned them a place in the hall. As of this writing, all of the members of Poco from their inception to today are living, although two members (original bassist Randy Meisner and longtime drummer George Grantham) are in poor health. Let’s not make it posthumous. One of Poco’s great, high-energy, feel-good anthems: