Bands Of Passing Interest For June

Here at the RSCMC, I keep the subject on music and bands of note. I kinda gotten a bit lazy over the past three months and with further prodding from my GF, I decided to add a couple bands of note, meaning bands that I do have a few albums from but not all of them. Consider them a step ahead of Can't Review Them All but a step below of a discography. Since I don't get much traffic in the RSCMC I pretty much consider this my own reference guide.

POCO

They were ahead of the Eagles in terms of forming to play country rock and roll and somehow can be blamed or praised for country music today. I'm not exactly a big fan of Poco but I do have a couple of their albums. My favorite remains Delivern' their 1971 live which is the final album of their famed lineup of Jim Messina, Richie Furay, Rusty Young, Tim Schmidt and George Grantham. Randy Meisner who played on Pickin Up The Pieces was the original bass player and left due to problems with Messina. And they Had a minor hit with A Man Like Me. I could refer you to the Very Best Of Poco, the 2 record overview which showcases the highlights (You Better Think Twice, Good Feeling To Know) as well as the lowlites (Bad Weather) but I perfer their rocking country over the country ballads that tend to drag their albums down particularly From The Inside. But however I docked the CD copy of Very Best Of Poco twice for the omission of Railroad Days which was the hardest rocking track on From The Inside.

Even though the original lineup tends to be fondly remembered it was Paul Cotton and Rusty Young keeping the name and band going throughout their career, espeically after Furay departed after Good Feelin To Know. I do have a fondness for their forgotten Cantamos album and have kept a lookout for their 1975 ABC debut Head Over Heals which includes the beautiful Keep On Trying. Each album got them more closer to MOR than country and radio played Crazy Love and Heart Of The Night from Legend. Under The Gun was uneven as hell despite having a nice rocking title track and though I heard good reviews of Cowboys And Englishmen, never heard the album itself. Last single I brought was 1983's This Old Flame which was on Atlantic and though Rhino issued both of Poco's albums on Atlantic as a two on one, it may have been the weakest albums from them. And then just in time for the CD age, RCA got the original band back together to do the moneygrab Legacy with the original lineup and although they had their biggest hit since Crazy Love with Call It Love, it was not too inspired. Part of the problem was Paul Cotton was missing, they had too many outside songwriters and the music wasn't memorable.

Although they were mostly a cult band, the best album to get remains The Ultimate Collection from Hip-O, since it contains most of their well known songs for Epic, ABC-MCA, Atlantic and Call It Love song. But for original Poco material, it's Deliverin for me and Contamos and Head Over Heals.