page_title: Poco
section_title: 1980 to 1999
hierarchical_section_title: Poco / History / 1980 to 1999
caption_attribution_description: English: Jim Messina - Live in Concert (photo by Scott Dudelson)
context_page_description: Poco is an American country rock band originally formed by Richie Furay, Jim Messina and Rusty Young. They were formed following the demise of Buffalo Springfield in 1968, Poco was part of the first wave of the West Coast country rock genre. The title of their first album, Pickin' Up the Pieces, is a reference to the break-up of Buffalo Springfield. Throughout the years Poco has performed in various groupings, and is still active.
context_section_description: During the first half of the 1980s, the group released five more albums: Under the Gun (1980), Blue And Gray (1981), Cowboys & Englishmen (1982) on MCA and, moving over to Atlantic Records, Ghost Town (1982) and Inamorata (1984). Poco failed to duplicate the success achieved by Legend, with each album performing more poorly than its predecessor.
  Poco also contributed the song "I'll Leave it Up to You" to Fast Times at Ridgemont High's soundtrack in 1982.
  On Inamorata the band mostly played down their "country rock" sound to adopt more of an "80s style" with more keyboards and glossy synth sounds as well as electronic drums. The album also featured guest spots by former members Timothy B. Schmit, Richie Furay and George Grantham.
  The group lost its recording contract with Atlantic due to the slow sales of Inamorata but continued to tour, mostly in small clubs. Bullard left to rejoin Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1983 (but still appeared on the sessions for Inamorata)   and Harrison (who had not played on Inamorata) departed in mid-1984. New members Jeff Steele (bass) and Rick Seratte (keyboards, backing vocals) came in for Poco's 1984 tour dates, but they departed, along with drummer Chapman, to be replaced in 1985 by future Great Plains front man Jack Sundrud (vocals, bass, guitar) and the returning Grantham. Grantham's reunion with Poco was brief, though; In late 1985, Ricky Skaggs asked him to rejoin his band. Chapman came back to take over drums again. During this period, the band  relocated to Nashville and recorded some demos, though no record deal resulted. And after a few scattered live dates for the group in 1986 and 1987, Paul Cotton did not perform with Poco again until 1992.
  After a lengthy recording hiatus, at the urging of Richard Marx and his manager Allen Kovac who took on Poco, the band re-emerged on the RCA label with the successful Legacy (1989), reuniting original members Young, Furay, Messina, Grantham and Meisner twenty years after Poco's debut. Though Timothy B. Schmit and Paul Cotton were also approached to appear on the project, Schmit declined and Cotton, who was busy with his solo career, was bought out of the group and it ended up being only the five originals. The album produced a Top 20 hit, "Call It Love," in the fall of 1989 and another Top 40 hit, "Nothing to Hide," in early 1990, earning Poco its second gold album (in its 19th release).
  The group (having added a keyboardist, Dave Vanacore) toured in early 1990 opening for Marx. Furay, now a church minister in Colorado, then had to bow out due to his commitments and Poco toured as a headliner in the summer of 1990 with Sundrud returning to take over rhythm guitar from Furay.
  Unfortunately, despite Legacy's gold status and the two hit singles, the band didn't make much money on their 1990 tour, one of the problems being their booking into military bases that turned out to be mostly empty since the troops were all deployed for the Desert Shield operation in the Persian Gulf. RCA ended up dropping them from their roster and recordings for a proposed follow up to Legacy were abandoned.
  In 1991 Poco toured as an acoustic trio with Young, Messina and Meisner (drummer Gary Mallaber joined them for dates in Japan that July). But by the end of 1991, Messina and Meisner had returned to their individual careers.
  After Messina and Meisner left, Young formed a side project, Four Wheel Drive, with John Cowan (from New Grass Revival), Bill Lloyd (from Foster & Lloyd) and Patrick Simmons (of Doobie Brothers). They were signed to a recording deal with RCA Nashville and completed an album which was never released. Warner Bros. Records then picked up the group in 1993, but when they were threatened with lawsuits from bands who had already copyrighted the name Four Wheel Drive, they changed the band's name to The Sky Kings. But their one and only album, completed in 1997, was not released until 2000, three years after the group disbanded.
  In the meantime, Rusty Young was the sole owner of the Poco name by early 1992 and, though they had not officially disbanded, t
caption: Jim Messina, founding member of Poco, performing in 2009
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 20D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2009:09:19 02:56:52", "Image WhitePoint": "[313/1000, 329/1000]", "Image PrimaryChromaticities": "[16/25, 33/100, 21/100, 71/100, 3/20, 3/50]", "Image YCbCrCoefficients": "[299/1000, 587/1000, 57/500]", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "344", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1146", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5138", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:04:26 17:44:22", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:04:26 17:44:22", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "141621/16384", "EXIF ApertureValue": "97349/32768", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Average", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "200", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "500", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "333", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "233600/59", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "233600/59", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Gamma": "11/5"}