It Happens All the Time.....

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Man, does this hurt me to post. Rusty Young has passed away. He suffered a heart attack in his home in Missouri on April 14. Poco, as I frequently only half-jokingly say, is my favorite rock band and my sixth-favorite country band. I've been a fan since, oh, I guess 1976 or 77. That's a long time. A lot of people think of Poco as an Eagles wanna-be, but in reality it's the Eagles who mimicked the country-rock of Poco, to the point where both Eagles bassists -- Randy Meisner and Timothy Schmit -- were originally in Poco. Poco came to be out of the ashes of the Buffalo Springfield, when Richie Furay and Jim Messina asked a Colorado-based steel guitarist named Rusty Young to join their new country-rock band. The band was originally called Pogo, after the Walt Kelly cartoon; however, Kelly threatened to sue so the band became Poco. Over fifty years later Rusty Young was the last original member of the band. Furay left after Crazy Eyes to become part of the short-lived Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, eventually moving into ministry (when I saw the reunited Poco in 1989 Furay wasn't with them because the show was on a Sunday night). Jim Messina quit after the second studio album, replaced by mainstay Paul Cotton. Messina became half of Loggins and Messina. Timothy Schmit replaced Randy Meisner in the Eagles. And George Grantham, the drummer, was onstage in 2008 when he suffered a stroke that ended his musical career. It would seem odd, then, that Young would be the first person from Poco to pass away. Young had released a solo album, Waiting for the Sun, in 2019. Poco was scheduled for their first post-COVID shows in June. I don't know what the band will do without the sole founding member, now that he’s gone. I do know, however, that "just a little bit of magic in the country music" Poco provided for 53 years will always endure in my heart. Rusty Young was 75. Poco's biggest hit, with Rusty Young on lead vocals: