KEYSOUNDSKEYSOUNDSKEYSOUNDS
Paul Cotton | Continued
PC: All the fences came down. It’s like stop and smell the roses. L.A. indeed was the place I needed to be.
GD: Creative artists feed off one another? PC: Oh, everybody was there. Yes, and the band was kind of like that. We fed off each other. I helped with arrangements of the other guys. I had never done that before, and I found out that I was really good at it. I could arrange other people’s music as well. And consequently a lot of my input went into those two albums.
GD: How much time in L.A. did it take you to where other people started realizing your talents? PC: Not long, not long, and those other people became Poco, obvi- ously. Te Illinois Speed Press was in its last days of a four piece — Kal and I and a bass player and a drummer. Poco was down to four pieces, and that’s where we got to hear each other.
GD: Tell me who and how Poco approached you about joining a top recording and tour? PC: Peter Cetera, actually. Peter and I grew up in Chicago, and he was their bass player’s lead singer. He was taking steel guitar lessons from Rusty Young from Poco. Peter had known that I was in my last phase of probably my last grouping of what might become the next phase of the Illinois Speed Press. And he thought that I would be available if Poco needed a replace- ment for Jimmy Messina, which they did need. And that’s how that came about, and that’s who I re- placed.
GD: How difficult was it for you when approached with the offer to join this great band? PC:My bandmates in the Speed Press graciously threw me out the door and said ‘take it, man, that’s where you belong.’ Tey knew where my heart was, because I had seen Poco’s debut at the Trubador and, oh boy, if I ever got a chance, I would take it, and I did. Continued on page 19
8 KONK Life
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