FACES & PLACES
AROUND TOWN
DECEMBER 2010- JANUARY 2011

POCO
By Marshall Bell

Steel Guitarist and POCO front man Rusty Young is humorously honest.

“There’s no way that Poco’s going to compete with Lady Gaga,” he said.

And that brute honesty, along with a genuine love for creating music, might be why Poco has maintained a loyal following for over 40 years of making music, even when several band members have come and gone.

“We really are just making records for the Poconuts: the people who come to the shows and the folks that go to our website. And there are quite a few of them.”

Which is why hundreds of Poco fans from all over the East Coast are expected to gather when original members Young and Jack Sundrud headline the Lambertville-New Hope Winter Festival Concert on Friday, Jan 28 at 8 pm in Stephen J. Buck Memorial Theatre at New Hope-Solebury High School. The band will be performing classic hits like “Crazy Love” and “Rose of Cimarron” along with a few songs from their upcoming album, which they are currently recording.

With a new keyboardist, Michael Webb, and drummer, George Lawrence, Poco is maybe as musically innovative as they were when the band first started. But Rusty Young takes great pride in saying that this isn’t the same Poco from 1968.

“A lot of things have changed,” said Young. “Just like life, things evolve. What’s happened is that the band has evolved and gotten better at what we do,” said Young.

Young, Sundrud, Lawrence, and Webb recorded their first album in over a decade, Running Horse, in 2003 and later released a live concert DVD in 2004 and Bareback At Big Sky in 2005.

Their loyal following, the Poconuts, is a blend of young and old. Some heard Poco play when in college in the 70s, and others are younger generations whose parents introduced them to the classic band.

“The poconuts are a group of people who get together on their own,” said Young. “They meet at shows. It’s just a group of friends and poco is the common denominator in their friendship. It’s a family.”

As one of the first bands to explore the synthesis of country and rock n’ roll, Poco has enjoyed 40 years of writing and recording music. Their first album, Pickin’ Up the Pieces, a reference to the breakup of Buffalo Springfield where a few of Poco’s original members came from, hit the charts in 1969. Poco has since seen several members come and go, including Randy Meisner and Timothy B. Schmit who left Poco to play for the Eagles in the mid 1970s. As much as Poco’s career has been marked by quality music—24 original albums—it’s been comparably defined as a turnstile for band members to come and go, with the exception of Young.

“I can’t think of a band from the late 60s or early 70s that hasn’t gone through massive changes,” said Young. “We appreciate the fact that things change. So that keeps it fresh, the fact that we do songs differently every year.”

Poco is known to play many of their hits differently than first recorded, which is part of the reason why Poco fans enjoy their concerts: no two concerts are the same.

“There are a lot of songs now that I would be bored of if I played them the same way for 40 years,” Young admitted.

It will be an exciting 2011 for Poco. Aside from touring and releasing a new album at the end of the summer, Young is also putting the finishing touches on his own book, a recap of over 40 years of experience in the music industry.

“I really didn’t think that I’d be playing music at this level for this long,” said Young. “It’s still a surprise every night when we pull into a performing arts center which holds 2,000 people and the place is sold out. I’m so appreciative of that and I feel so lucky that that’s been my life. “

Having played with music greats like Jimi Hendrix and Elton John, Poco concerts are as much about the music as they are the rich stories that Young provides.

“We play a lot of big events where they’ll be 10,000 people,” said Young. “But I really like the smaller venues where people are closer and it’s more intimate, because than I can tell stories. It’s a lot of fun.”

Poco’s concert is the kick-off for the week long Lambertville-New Hope Winter Festival which raises money for local town initiatives and Food Banks. Greg Cagno is the support act for the Poco concert.

Other events include the popular Chili Cook-off, Fire and Ice Ball, and the Beef n’ brew. Tickets and information can be found at www.winterfestival.net.