Poco
Album: Poco Live
Label: Floating World
Tracks: 7
Website: http://www.poconut.org/

Poco is a Southern California country rock band originally formed by Richie Furay, Jim Messina and Rusty Young. The band came together following the demise of Buffalo Springfield in 1968. I was rather surprised and delighted to hear that they are still going strong albeit with different personnel. Founder member Rusty Young is the only survivor from the original band. He did in fact retire in 2013 but missed the buzz of the band so much that he almost immediately came out of retirement complaining that it was only fit for growing tomatoes.

At the risk of upsetting all Poco fans, I most associate them with "Rose of Cimarron" and am not that familiar with some of the songs on this remastered 1976 album which was originally released by Sony. I am not a great fan of "live" albums but this one works not least of all because the audience is fairly quiet, or the volume has been turned down and it is a short album by modern standards at just 37 minutes. Go on to YouTube and look at some of the original Poco material on there.

The original band was arguably one of the forerunners of West Coast American music and "High and Dry" demonstrates this perfectly. The members of the band have changed substantially since those early days but have included such doyens of popular music such as: George Grantham, Randy Meisner and Timothy B Schmitt. It seems quite strange to me that I have just reviewed the latest Don Henley album and the last two musicians mentioned here both featured largely in the success of The Eagles. In fact Randy went back to Poco after his exclusion from The Eagles having been replaced by Timothy.

If you have a reasonable knowledge of 60's and 70's music, read the names of the musicians and even if you know little about Poco specifically, you should be able to guess what the music will sound like. Lively, good harmonies, a solid backbeat and that rounded soft rock sound of California.

Over the years the band has produced in excess of 40 albums with worldwide sales counted in the many millions. They are also just about to go on the road again with the current line-up of Rusty Young, Jack Sundrud, George Lawrence and Michael Webb but bearing in mind that Rusty will be 70 in February 2016, it is unlikely to be a very long or arduous tour.

Highlights for me on this album and the songs that most depict the Poco sound are "Bad Weather" "Ride The Country" and the aforementioned "High and Dry."

There is nothing pretentious about this band or their music. It is just good solid harmonious soft rock. I really enjoyed it and I think you might too.

Rory Stanbridge