The Last Post Magazine – Edition 23: Summer 2021

Page 42

Rusty Young

GTR: Hello, Rusty. It’s a pleasure speaking with you.

RY: Yeah. Hi. Likewise, Greg. GTR:How are you? RY: I’m fine. Boy, you’re a long way away, aren’t you? GTR: Yeah, yeah, yeah. What’s it like there? RY: Well, the weather has just turned cold and kind of fall-like. And the leaves are all turning and it’s been pretty rainy, but we live in the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri, you know, in the middle of the United States. Yeah. So, you know, we virtually live in a forest and so it’s a lot of fun to see the seasons go by, the four seasons that we get here. We built a place that overlooks a river that runs through the Park and we sit way up high on a cliff. And it’s very cool. GTR: Well, Rusty, it sounds absolutely beautiful. And in its own way, very Poco-like. RY: It is very Poco-like. Yes. GTR: Thanks for joining us here, Rusty, and taking the time for a chat. Look, Rusty, you’re the mainstay, really, of the legendary country rock group Poco. How did it all start? RY: Well, it started in the late sixties. In ‘67, I was asked to go out to Los Angeles and do a session for Buffalo Springfield. And they were doing their Last Time Around record, which was their final album. And it was an album that the band didn’t really want to do because they’d already really broken up, but they owed Atlantic Records one more album. They were working on fulfilling their contract. And so I was asked to come out and join Jimmy Messina and Richie Furay. We had a friend in common who recommended me, and I flew out from Colorado to LA and played on a Richie Furay song on the Last Time Around record. And that’s how I met Jimmy and Richie. And the three of us... They didn’t have a band, you know. Springfield was broken up. And Richie and Jimmy didn’t have a band. They wanted to put a band together. And when I met up with them, we had a lot in common, because I played or I play all these country instruments, like mandolin and banjo and Dobro and steel guitar. I was... The combination of, with Jimmy’s guitar playing, and my stuff that I could do, and then Richie’s songwriting and his great vocal, it was obvious. We just needed a rhythm section of bass and drums and we had a band. And so that’s how Poco got started.

GTR: Well, it’s wonderful that that should occur, too, Rusty. And to just borrow a line, when you say about the Dobro and the banjo, was that you at the end of Rose of Cimarron? It was wonderful.

RY: Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, that’s a blessed, indirect thing. We were on the road, it was the middle seventies, and I think it was ‘76 when we released that song. So, it was probably ‘74, ‘75, when I wrote it. But we were traveling through Oklahoma and at a hotel, they have these racks full of brochures about things that you can go see in the area. And I was looking at the rack while we were checking in and there was a brochure and the headline on the brochure was, Rose of Cimarron. And I thought, “Boy, what a beautiful phrase that is.” And I picked up the brochure and read about going to Rose of Cimarron’s house and visiting her cabin and the whole story. And I started looking into it and that’s what gave birth to that song. GTR: And how beautiful and what a poetic title, too, for a song, Rusty, and a great utilization of lyrics and tune, too. So, fantastic. Where did the name Poco come from? RY: Well, it was great. It always is difficult to find a band name that everybody likes. So, when we first started playing at the Troubadour in LA, in like ‘69, we didn’t have a name. So, we would throw names in a hat, everybody would throw their favourite name in a hat before we played that week. And our manager would pull a name out of the hat and that would be the name we would use. We had RFD, which is, you know, like Rural Free Delivery, was the name. It was in the hat. And there were Popcorns. Somebody wanted to call it that. And all, you know, all different names. Jimmy Messina’s name was Flintlock Pepper Box. GTR: Well, that’s a good one. RY: Our manager, he would throw a name in there, too. And he looked like there’s a cartoon character called Pogo. And he looked just like that cartoon character, a very strange little guy. And he threw Pogo in the hat. And it just so happened one week when we were playing at the Troubadour, that was the name we pulled out. So, we were playing as Pogo and it turns out that about half a dozen different labels came to the shows that week. And at the end of the week, we had three or four offers for record deals for Pogo. RY: And so we played as Pogo, and we were going to sign a deal as Pogo, when Walt Kelly, the guy who wrote

40  THE LAST POST – 2021 SUMMER EDITION

the comic strip, sued us. Said we couldn’t use that name. So, because everything was moving so quickly, we thought, well, if we just change the G to a C and call it Poco, maybe they won’t even notice. So, that’s how we got the name Poco. Plus I liked it. Here’s to my high school Spanish, you know, poco meant little and I thought that was, you know, it’s a cool little band. And I thought, so, Poco makes sense. GTR: Well, in many ways, actually, and well said, too, Rusty. And thanks for explaining that to everyone that will be enlightened, because for some reason Poco, to me, sounds cool. RY: Yeah. And the manager that we had that came up with the Pogo thing was an idiot. And he had been the Buffalo Springfield’s road manager, and he was really not qualified to be on the big stage. And he had a great comment about Pogo. He said, “Oh, that’s terrific. Because on a billboard, you know, outside a theatre, because it’s only four letters, the letters can be really big where, you know, a Buffalo Springfield or Jefferson Airplane has so many letters, they have to be small.” Which was so foolish of a guy who’d actually been in the business because you know, the letters that go on those places, they’re all the same size. GTR: That’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. You can fit more letters on the back of a postage stamp.

RY: This is the same guy who... I was at the office when we got a call from our agent and he said, “They’re doing this big festival up in Woodstock, New York. That’s never been done before. And it’s going to have Hendrix and the Who and CSN is doing their first show and all this kind of stuff, and they want Poco.” And he said, “Well, when’s the date?” And they told him, and he said, “Well, I’m sorry, but we’ve got a better offer.” And so we didn’t play Woodstock. Because Woodstock was only... They were only paying $500 to the acts. And I think we got $700 and we played a gymnasium in Long Beach, California. So for $200, we missed out on Woodstock. So anyway, yeah, we made some big mistakes in the very beginning and the first one was not having a professional manager. GTR: Actually that, thanks. That’s such an enlightenment to hear that incredible stuff. Because, of course, if you see the movie, the original movie at least, a lot of people didn’t realize there were some acts that actually appear there, like Creedence and everything. And to imagine that Poco could have been there, too, would have been icing on the cake for everyone,


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