everything that Gram did, he was much more country than us. He was a master of it. The king of Americana. He was good at it. He had his problems, which caught up with him, but he was waymore country than rock, and were kind of right down the middle between country and rock. Nobody can take away from what he did, that’s for sure.
He was a lawyer who got the be the label pres- ident because he was a lawyer. He had no mu- sical knowledge or experience to speak of. I wanted to say “Have you ever heard of the Everly Brothers? What about their hit “Lu- cille?” My friend Buddy Emmons played steel on that one.”
Buddy Emmons was “the” steel guitar player. He was the man. But when you talk about those early days of country rock, there were some great ones long before we played. Buddy Holly for instance. He started that rev- olution that became country rock.
And Linda Ronstadt came out of that scene too. I was crazy about her. Every guy was. She was absolutely amazingly attractive, and such a beautiful voice.
One of my favorite voices of the ‘70’s. And those J.D. Souther songs that she sang. Absolute perfection.
Rick Nelson was a big Poco fan. He’s
show up at the Troubadour with his brother David and dad Ozzie Nelson. Then he had his own Stone Canyon Band too. He was country rock, even had James Burton playing guitar for him. Ray Charles was country rock during the ‘60’s. The Everly Brothers. I’m just about finished writing my
book, and there’s a lot of stories in there. One of my favorites is about Clive Davis. When we recorded Pickin’ Up the Pieces, he called us into his office to play us a mix of the record on an old reel to reel player. It was pretty much the same as we recorded, except there was no steel guitar. Richie said, “That’s good but you know the steel guitar is pretty much one of the key elements of our sound.” So, Clive said, “I had to take it out because you can’t have a hit record with steel guitar on it.”
(Both laugh)
After 50 years of Poco and all of the su- perstar bandmates and friends, do you have any special memories of those years that rise to the top? Well, I just saw Jimmy last weekend. He’s moved to Nashville now. He and I are close. We were close in the beginning of the band, like brothers. In the old days, the band mem- bers had to share rooms, and Jimmy and I al- ways shared a room. You have to be really close to share a room in0 a rock and roll band.
So I’ve heard. Yeah, yeah. Lots of stories. (Laughs) Jimmy and I are playing some shows this year. I played on his last record, he played on my last record. We are really brothers. I enjoy work- ing with Jimmy. I love Randy Meisner. Randy’s not doing anything right now. We all
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