Poco - Legend

I knew Poco from "Crazy Love" a nice and easy radio friendly hit growing up. As an Eagles fan I knew about Poco because they seemed to leak bass players. First Randy Meisner, and then a few years later Timothy B. Schmit. Mr. Schmit had the distinction of first replacing Randy in Poco, and then doing so again in the Eagles.

"Crazy Love" was a pretty cool song, and even though I liked some "country" rock I never got any of their albums. Now to put this in context, this wasn't a snub. Back in 1978 I didn't have a lot of records. I had a small allowance and no job - so I didn't have the means to go out an indulge. However, in later years when I'd be making up for lost time picking up the early Eagles albums and similar records, it never crossed my mind to look for Poco.

I got lucky and found a decent, but very dirty (cover, and vinyl) copy of the album in the dollar bin. As expected there was no insert, but everything cleaned up really nicely - except I went a little heavy with my micro fibre cloth on the cover, and rubbed off a spot - oh well. It still has what I hope are coffee splatter stains, but they're hard to see, and mostly gone now.

Reading up on the band, Legend wasn't even supposed to be a Poco album - it was supposed to be the Cotton-Young Band, with Charlie Harrison on bass and background vocals and Steve Chapman on drums. As fate would have it they would be signed to ABC Records, prior to being bought out by MCA, and would put out the album as Poco. As a result Legend would be the eleventh album by the band, and be one of their most successful releases.

Not having heard much of their earlier catalogue I don't know for sure how dramatic a change Legend was from their previous efforts, I get the impression this was a tonal shift and a move into more straight ahead rock (soft rock still has the word "rock" in it)  - which makes sense as initially this was Paul Cotton and Rusty Young working together and fleshing out a new path before having their new endeavour aligned with their old brand and band name. The album would benefit from a little name recognition, a decent hit with "Crazy Love" and the result was a gold record. The band finally saw some commercial success, and were no longer just a band who once served as a bass feeder for the Eagles.

So how is it? Well, I'm pretty happy and this is pretty awesome. I didn't have any real expectations and this isn't so much rock as late 70s soft rock with a lot of good harmonies. Heck the first side was really good, the only song I really didn't like as much was "Barbados." Side one closes out with "Love Comes Love Goes" that has hints of Neil Young in the vocal delivery is a great song. This is my favourite so far. It's a mid tempo slow burn that has a great sax solo (it was 1978, a great year for sax solos) and a nice guitar break. 

This is exceeding my expectations so far. The second side has a great one - two punch with "Heart of the Night" and "Crazy Love." I hadn't heard the first one before, and apparently it was a decent single but I guess it didn't chart here in Canada. It's a very nice song, but also pretty generic for all that - but really good generic when compared to the other syrupy songs from the late 70s. However, "Crazy Love" is still a fantastic song, and oddly enough nothing else on the albums really sounds like it. The song did really well, and the album was just shy of breaking into the top ten here. The second side closes out with a full ahead rocker with "Legend" that has a driving snare that reminded me a little of "Night Moves" but other than that sounds nothing like Bob Seger. Of all the songs on Legend this is the one I'd have thought would have gotten more radio play. Maybe it did on FM stations back when there was a difference between the AM and FM formats.

All in all, this was a great find. Paul Cotton and Rusty Young were very good writers, and their voices are very similar with differences in tone and delivery but mesh together really well. A little like the Henley / Frey dynamic but with less bickering (I'm just spit-balling here, I have no idea - but I get that sense).

Some fun trivia. The band was managed by John Hartmann. who had a brother who was a graphic designer - his name was Phil Hartman, yes that Phil Hartmann. He designed the cover. It's a great cover.